Instead of celebrating 10 years of Cooperation between China and Central and Eastern European Countries, known as 16+1, in April 2022, China desperately dispatched its special representative for the forum on an eight-country tour to salvage a relationship worsened by the war in Ukraine.
Thanks to its own actions, China has alienated a group of countries that would otherwise have been natural partners, and has shown the world how easy it is to lose a region in 10 years.
Beijing’s first mistake was to come up with myriad promises that never materialized.
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