Six Bosnian-Herzegovinian portals—Capital, Fokus, Tačno.net, Info-radar, Hercegovina.info, and Žurnal—have prepared four films about the development of Chinese influence in this area.

Six Bosnian-Herzegovinian portals—Capital, Fokus, Tačno.net, Info-radar, Hercegovina.info, and Žurnal—have prepared four films about the development of Chinese influence in this area.

Six Bosnian and Herzegovinian portals: Capital, Fokus, Tačno.net, info-radar, Hercegovina-info, and Žurnal have prepared four films about the development of Chinese influence in this region. Watch the first part of the series "The Chinese Way - Belt Around Bosnia and Herzegovina."

Representatives of the G7 member countries expressed concern about the economic activities of Chinese companies, and the French minister of finance stated that the entire world economy is in danger of being oversaturated with cheap Chinese exports. On the other hand, various goods worth BAM 1.033.207 entered BiH from China last year, but there is no concern. Moreover, the Chinese are becoming the favorite business partners of the authorities in BiH, especially in the Republika Srpska.

While some economic analysts and politicians, led by precise data, warn that Serbia is increasingly moving towards debt entrapment by China, and the entity Republika Srpska obviously wants to follow that path, the authorities seem to be unbothered. Perhaps that is the cost of the increasingly touted “steel friendship” between the Serbian and Chinese people…

In their analysis of China’s influence in the region, the Konrad Adenauer Foundation and Wilfried Martens Centre for European Studies underline that the strengthening of China’s influence in the Western Balkan countries is causing increasingly greater headaches for the European Union, and they warn that the growing influence of China in the countries of the Western Balkans is actually distancing these countries from the EU membership. At the same time, the president of the BiH entity Republika Srpska Milorad Dodik, who is declaratory in favor of BiH’s European path, evaluates the cooperation with the Chinese as “good”, stressing that he is “completely convinced that it will be continued”.

Minister of Energy and Mining of RS, Petar Đokić, recently deemed the demands of Chinese companies, which submitted bids for the construction of the Buk Bijela hydroelectric power plant, as unfair, particularly regarding responses related to disputes before the Constitutional Court of BiH and UNESCO. However, such a move is expected, as the business logic of the Chinese mostly involves seeking state property with "clean" documents as collateral. Journal's interlocutors analyze the Chinese interest in BiH and the region, whether China is a political actor in these areas, why corrosive Chinese capital is controversial, and how opacity creates a certain level of suspicion and mistrust.

Despite little concrete evidence of malign Chinese influence, Chinese business dealings in Bosnia and Herzegovina demonstrate how Chinese economic investments are intertwined with politics, and their lack of transparency fuels the already pervasive corruption in the country, according to analyses and research. Chinese companies have become one of the favourite business partners of Milorad Dodik and his associates, with the Chinese currently facing virtually no competition on major construction sites in this entity. On the other hand, authorities accommodate them by approving deadline extensions, contracting additional work, and granting natural resources, even though some Chinese companies have been proven to engage in fraud, placed on blacklists, engaged in bribery, and operated illegally...

While Chinese investments in countries in the European Union have been decreasing year by year, investments and loans from China to Bosnia and Herzegovina have notably increased since 2019. As the EU implements stricter rules for scrutinizing Chinese companies' investments, there are hardly any controls in Bosnia and Herzegovina, making the Chinese one of the favourite business partners. The primary interest of China is economic, but there are claims that Chinese economic investments are closely intertwined with politics. Controversies, suspicions of corruption and favouritism, lack of transparency, delays, activist protests, and failed projects... all of these characterize Chinese projects in both entities of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Having in mind China's reputation for corrosive capital, and that their funding sources lack transparency and accountability, which is understandable because all finances come from one authoritarian regime, it is clear that China through its companies in some way buys the favour of some BiH politicians who favour them in mastering natural resources. Tomorrow, it can be used as a means of influencing political decisions in favour of the Chinese and their interests in BiH

The day after our attempt to visit the Sinohydro headquarters at 5 Svetozara Markovića Street, we learned that the Chinese company’s headquarters had been registered at a new address. No less and no more – than in the building of the Tax Administration of the RS, on Trg Republike Srpske at number 8 / XII. It is impossible to enter the building without notice, and contact with Sinohydra is impossible via e-mail address or phone

While Russian influence and the Russian people in BiH are talked about and discussed on a daily basis, and then the influence of the West, Chinese influence is in the background. But Chinese companies are taking a nice business cake, and providing themselves with multimillion-dollar jobs, plants and facilities in BiH. They enter slowly, gently, or as the most famous director would say "from behind", in order to break through.

While the BiH authorities have voted against banning the export of logs several times, China is giving huge incentives to its citizens to import wood assortments, which the Chinese have used and come to BiH with bags full of cash, buy logs at much higher prices than in “Šume Srpske” and export them to their country in containers, reveals the CAPITAL portal.