Yugochina

Yugoslavia was important for China’s identity-building, development, and world-making. The post-Yugoslav-Chinese relations are very much shaped by Yugoslavia. A new book spotlights the history and the present of China’s involvement with (ex)Yugoslavia.

With Anastas Vangeli (University of Ljubljana, Slovenia) and Dragan Pavlićević (Xi’an Jiaotong – Liverpool University, Suzhou, China).

Listen: “Yugochina” (Episode #126)

Bonus Extras: “Yugochina” (Episode #126)

Extended, ad-free version of “Yugochina” (Episode #126).

Transcript: “Yugochina” (Episode #126)

[SOUNDBITE]

PETER KORCHNAK: This episode of Remembering Yugoslavia is brought to you by Yugoblok, a member-supported global community and resource hub for all who remember Yugoslavia. Through membership contributions, Yugoblok members make this podcast (and a whole lot more) accessible and freely available to all. Members can also listen to episodes ad-free and enjoy extended and bonus episodes.

Visit Yugoblok.com to explore and join today. 

[JINGLE] 

PETER KORCHNAK: This is Remembering Yugoslavia, a Yugoblok show exploring the memory of a country that no longer exists. I’m your charge d’affaires, Peter Korchnak.

Everyone knows China as a major player in today’s geopolitics and global economy. In the West, China is viewed as a competitor at best, a threat or even a foe at worst. Although, that may be changing: as the US keeps shooting itself in the foot, The Economist recently reported [that] China’s favorability as the world’s leading power has been growing worldwide.

When I say global, that includes the former Yugoslavia as well. But here China’s image is much more positive.

There’s a multitude of reasons for that, much of which reach back to Yugoslav history. Not much is known about the relations between Yugoslavia and China and how the former country shaped the latter into the present behemoth that it is. I certainly knew next to nothing about this until reading Yugoslavia and China: Histories, Legacies, Afterlives, a new book edited by Anastas Vangeli and Dragan Pavlićević, just out from Routledge. I sat down with Vangeli and Pavlićević to talk about what they and their book’s contributors found. In a sense, the story complements that of nonalignment, as the relations between Yugoslavia and China unfolded against its backdrop. 

But before we get to that, I want to mention another recent volume relating to nonalignment. 

Paul Stubbs, whom you may remember from the nonalignment series last year, has a new book out about an overlooked aspect, or a byproduct if you will, of the Nonaligned Movement. In The New International Economic Order: Lives and Afterlives, also fresh from Routledge, Stubbs delves into quote “one of a number of important counter-hegemonic worldmaking projects” that was “a concerted and holistic effort by Third World Countries to develop a framework for a new set of global economic and political relations.” With their proposals for the New International Economic Order in the 1970s within the United Nations framework, developing nations, many of them members of the Nonaligned Movement, aimed to “correct inequalities, redress existing injustices, make it possible to eliminate the widening gap between developed and developing countries, and ensure accelerating economic and social development and peace and justice…”

In the slim but dense volume, Stubbs outlines the pre-history and history of the New International Economic Order, its goals and content, that is, what NIEO actually was (and wasn’t), somewhat related but tangential issues of gender, social rights, migration, and environmentalism, and finally the framework’s successors, namely the New World Information and Communications Order and BRICS. 

The book is more scholarly than pop history, but definitely of interest to everyone interested in the Nonaligned Movement and the issues of global development and inequality. Routledge sells the book for the academic market at its website for $56 dollars for an ebook and $200 for a hardcover, so find it, if you can, in your university library or online.

[SOUNDBITE]

DRAGAN PAVLIĆEVIĆ: I was actually really surprised of how important eventually, Yugoslavia turned [out] to be for China’s own development, and China’s own understanding of itself, of its place in the world about, you know, the development path that you know it wanted to take, and which eventually took, and its state building later on as well. China kind of looked up to Yugoslavia to get ideas for its own sort of development, for its own reform, particularly in the late 70s and so on. 

I expected to find something, but I was really surprised to learn how important Yugoslavia really was for China. 

PETER KORCHNAK: Dragan Pavlićević is associate professor in China studies at Xi’an Jiaotong – Liverpool University in Suzhou where he focuses on Chinese domestic and foreign policy. He is originally from the part of Yugoslavia that’s now Serbia, and spoke with me from Belgrade.

ANASTAS VANGELI: The main facet of the relationship was this ideational exchange. And of course, this ideational impact is very asymmetrical: Yugoslavia had much more impact on China than vice versa.

PETER KORCHNAK: Anastas Vangeli is assistant professor at the School of Economics and Business of the University of Ljubljana and a fellow Central European University alum. He is from Macedonia (today’s North Macedonia), and spoke with me from Ljubljana.

According to the editors, “Yugoslavia and China: Histories, Legacies, Afterlives” emerged from years of discussions with academics, diplomats, and business people dealing with China and a joint realization that there is a big gap in the knowledge about the Yugoslavia-China relations, including in the context of nonalignment. They created a book they wanted to read.

“The outsize ideational impact of Yugoslavia on China [is] one of the most dominant recurring themes” of the book, state the editors in the introduction.

I too realized just how little I knew about this and just how important Yugoslavia was for China. This book was quite eye opening in that regard. 

ANASTAS VANGALI: It was really important that we tell the story in a certain sequence. 

PETER KORCHNAK: The book follows pretty much the same model I do here on the podcast, though much more theoretically grounded, of course. In short, the past informs and shapes the present, so if we want to understand what’s happening today, we have to look at how it came to be. 

The post-Yugoslav-Chinese relations are very much shaped by Yugoslavia. These past-present linkages of course explain the book’s subtitle, “Histories, Legacies, Afterlives.”

ANASTAS VANGELI: The book starts with, let’s say, the big picture context, where we have one chapter by Jovan Čavoški, who is actually an eminent historian of nonalignment, who talks about Yugo-Chinese relations in the context of the global Cold War. 

PETER KORCHNAK: The foundation for the two countries’ relations came out of World War II: both Yugoslavia and China developed their own revolutionary movements led by homegrown communist parties, that is, not imported from or imposed by the Soviet Union.

The two countries each developed their own, specific foreign policy agendas outside or in parallel to the superpower context, becoming leaders in their own right. These nonaligned agendas made Sino-Yugoslav relations a quote “key Cold War theater,” with both countries operating as “independent political and ideological centers with significant regional influence.”

ANASTAS VANGELI: Similarly, Yugoslavia would be the one that would be the first to have this relationship with the West, which then also not only inspires China to build relations with the West, but also to some extent, you know, warming up relations with Yugoslavia would also serve the purpose to also kind of open to the West. And Yugoslavia would be one of the channels through which China would reach out to the West. 

PETER KORCHNAK: Both countries sought better relations with the West, one, to avoid isolation, as they stood outside the Soviet bloc, and two, to develop ties with the rest of the world.

ANASTAS VANGELI: And then another chapter by Ivica Bakota, who discusses actually the Chinese concept of Yugoslavia throughout the Cold War and until today, nansilafu. So how this concept of Yugoslavia basically informed Chinese worldview at different stages in China’s own trajectory. 

PETER KORCHNAK: “From early on,” write Vangeli and Pavlićević in their introduction, “Yugoslavia contributed to China’s socialist identity-building, understanding of the strategic environment as well as international positioning and role…” 

Nansilafu, which is the phonetic transcription of “Yugoslavia” in Mandarin Chinese, was a concept in China that embodied its perspective on Yugoslavia, undergirding its foreign policy and world-building. Yugoslavia provided China with quote “a model for peaceful cooperation with Western countries” and shaped its policies toward the Global South.

ANASTAS VANGELI: The next part of the book zooms in on different stages of the relationship. Zvonimic Stopić, another of the rising stars, historians on Yugoslav foreign policy, he writes about three key junctures in the Sino-Yugoslav relations: 1948 the Tito-Stalin split, 1958 Yugoslavia’s proclamation of its own path of socialism, and 1968 debates on coexistence. 

Yugoslavia, also, in a sense, had shaped and impacted, in general, China’s trajectory during the Cold War, and often through episodes that, at first, you know, would   be met with criticism by China. Let’s say, Yugoslavia’s split from the Soviet Union, initially, you know, China was very much opposed to it, chastised Yugoslavia about it. But later, you know, this became the president and for China’s own split from the Soviet Union, which basically changed the course of the Cold War. 

Similarly, you know, when Yugoslavia decided to pursue its own path of socialism, China initially would see this as revisionism, which would be  a very harsh condemnation. But eventually this would be then the precedent for socialism with Chinese characteristics.

DRAGAN PAVLIĆEVIĆ: A lot of those experiences that they have seen in Yugoslavia and reflected upon eventually end up in the reform policy of China, right? And basically, is being built into, you know what the Chinese model of market socialism, or socialism with Chinese characteristics, has become later on.

On the back of that model, China has, then, for the next 45 now years or more, achieved very substantial economic rates of economic growth, economic development, modernization, right? And that again, changed the whole kind of global landscape. So Yugoslavia was not only important for China. It was very, very important for the trajectory of Chinese reforms, but it’s basically, then by extension, also very important for one maybe of the most important global developments, you know, in the last 50 years, and that’s the rise of China and the impact it has on the basic global economic and political structures.

ANASTAS VANGELI: Then Dragan’s and Vladimir’s chapter, 

PETER KORCHNAK: —that’s Dragan Pavlićević and Vladimir Milić—

ANASTAS VANGELI: —discusses China’s role in reform and opening up, which is probably one of the most consequential historical episodes of the relationship. 

DRAGAN PAVLIĆEVIĆ: We looked at that period in the late 70s where China was sort of moving away from the Maoist model into something very different, moving away from emphasis on ideology and structuring basically domestic, foreign policies, on ideological concerns, toward basically installing economic development and modernization of the country as the primary objective. 

And at that time, Chinese decision makers, Chinese leaders, did not really know how to reform. They knew that they needed to reform if they wanted to achieve economic growth, economic development, modernization, but they didn’t really know how. And what they knew is that they wanted to do that within a sort of socialist framework. 

So what was very important for them then was to look at what other socialist countries did in terms of their own domestic reforms, and for a variety of reasons, really the most open to sort of communicating on this with China was Yugoslavia. So they put a lot of effort into understanding the Yugoslav economic model and Yugoslav economic reforms and Yugoslav experience. But also beyond that, they were actually interested in many issues related to governance, government, political and economic and social system experience in Yugoslavia. 

From late 70s, somewhere, from 1977 onwards, China sends a substantial number of delegations to Yugoslavia to learn about Yugoslav economic model, Yugoslav experience. I think that was around 350 delegations within a short span of three or four years, thousands of people coming to Yugoslavia from China, staying in Yugoslavia for an average of 25, 30 days. So that was not your regular sort of diplomatic exchange. Clearly, they were there to spend a lot of time trying to really go in depth in terms of their understanding of how Yugoslavia did things. And as they were coming, they were writing reports. They were taking that information back to China. And a lot of that information, of course, was packaged as well for the decision makers at the very top.

So by looking at the Yugoslav experience and reflecting on that, Chinese leaders basically recognize that a country can still be a socialist, even if it was to incorporate market elements into its economic model, just as Yugoslavia did. They look at a number of policy areas, from how to manage enterprises to how to structure and manage agriculture, to how to sort of attract foreign investment and manage foreign investment, many other policy areas.

PETER KORCHNAK: Hyperbolically speaking, Yugoslavia provided a model for China’s market socialism, or one-party capitalism, or whatever you want to call it, thereby providing one of the bases for the current world order. A not so gentle reminder for yugodeniers that we in the world are where we are today thanks in part to Yugoslavia.

ANASTAS VANGELI: Then Federico Brusadelli discusses, let’s say, the Chinese disillusionment with Yugoslavia, and especially the traumatic effect Yugoslavia’s crisis and dissolution had on China, as well as the lessons learned. 

PETER KORCHNAK: Indeed, China took from Yugoslavia a number of negative lessons as well. 

ANASTAS VANGELI: China is very selective and very kind of pedantic about learning from abroad. The more they get to know Yugoslavia, especially in the 80s—of course, this was also the period when Yugoslavia would experience its own crisis—the more the Chinese were also aware of shortcomings of the Yugoslav model. 

Some of the main negative lessons they had drawn already before the dissolution of Yugoslavia was the system was too decentralized, politically, both in terms of governing ethnic diversity, both in terms of political economy between the different republics, and that it was ideologically too relaxed, too loose.

Paradoxically, this is the stuff that many yugonostalgic people really love about Yugoslavia, that it had rock and roll and Western culture. But you know, in Chinese assessments of what actually weakened Yugoslavia, they say, “Oh, you gave up your authentic antifascist culture for rock ‘n’ roll,” right? And this, in a way, weakened the ideational, ideological foundations of the society. 

PETER KORCHNAK: Another negative lesson for China was Yugoslavia’s dissolution.

DRAGAN PAVLIĆEVIĆ: A few lessons that China took from it, or the Chinese leadership, or the ruling party took from it, one was that [the] party had to make sure that it was able to effectively govern right. 

Part of the obviously reasons why Yugoslavia fell apart was that the League of Communists of Yugoslavia was not capable anymore to manage Yugoslavia politically.

It sort of motivated China as well to work a lot on   strengthening the organizational, ideological aspects of its own political political system, right, in order to prevent what has happened to Yugoslavia, to happen to China. 

They basically also sort of blamed the dissolution of Yugoslavia and some other features of the Yugoslav system, the republics, the federal structure, which basically they realized they sort of evaluated as opening the way toward the secession of the of the republics. So later in the actually, already in the early 90s, there were reforms in China that were aiming to sort of recentralize the power on the Chinese federal level, right—China kind of consists of provinces which were similar to what republics used to be in Yugoslavia—in the fiscal and also kind of political sort of terms. So there were attempts to recentralize China in order to prevent that sort of federalism that emerged as sort of one of the main reasons for secession in Yugoslavia. 

ANASTAS VANGELI: Usually in the literature on China, what is studied as an important, let’s say, inflection point ideologically for China is the dissolution of the Soviet Union. And of course, we’re not saying that it didn’t matter. 

But you know, when you talk to Chinese people, especially from the generations that were coming of age during the 80s, you know, for many of them, the Soviet Union, due to the Sino-Soviet split and tense relations onwards despite attempts for normalization, the Soviet Union was this kind of corrupt system. Despite the strategic significance of the dissolution, no one was really emotionally sad for the for the Soviet Union. 

And for Yugoslavia, it was different. Although by the late 80s, you know, criticism of Yugoslavia also intensified, again, still for many Chinese people, and when I say Chinese people, I talk about very well performing students and people from all, let’s say policy sectors who were coming to Yugoslavia, you know, Yugoslavia was the first, and probably at the time the only foreign country they visited, their window to the world. So they were very emotionally attached to it. And these people actually now are in commanding positions in China, in academia, in media, in politics. For them, the dissolution of Yugoslavia, especially because it ended in bloody wars, was a shock, a trauma of sorts. Aside from all the lessons, the emotional impact was very strong. 

And when it comes to the lessons you know, again, it’s very layered. 

If you ask some of the Chinese authoritative voices, let’s say we cite Zhang Weiwei, who is, like one of the political thinkers in China these days, who has his own talk show, and a couple years ago, he had an episode on the dissolution of Yugoslavia. He traveled Yugoslavia extensively. In the 80s as a translator for top Chinese leaders. One of his recommendations at the time would be follow Ante Marković, because he was a politician who wanted to kind of reunite and defragment Yugoslavia, while also integrate it economically. So one of the arguments about these divisions, decentralization was that actually Yugoslavia economically was not really a unified actor. You know, that the economic autonomy of the republics was too high, and that actually this perpetuated disparities, you know, they they note, let’s say the disparities between Slovenia and Kosovo, and say this is not sustainable on the long run. 

It was, and it is still a major issue for the Chinese Communist Party. It is also in some sense that dissolution of Yugoslavia made Yugoslavia a bit of a taboo, let’s say outside this, maybe core political inner discussions because just of the horrors that Yugoslavia faced. A lot of the, let’s say previous links and lessons would lose their public significance because simply, no one really wants to remind themselves of a project that eventually failed.

PETER KORCHNAK: The learning from Yugoslavia’s negative experiences  continued into the postwar 1990s.

DRAGAN PAVLIĆEVIĆ: They were also later on in the 90s, I think, looking at

particularly the case of 1999 NATO campaign in then the third Yugoslavia, and issues around Kosovo and ethnic Albanians in Kosovo. 

So they also sort of realized that, you know, China is a multiethnic sort of country as well, had to think about how the ethnic sort of policies could open the way for the secessionism as well. So we have also seen sort of changes in that domain and move toward, again, a different type threatening policies which are meant to kind of strengthen the state and the dominance of the Han majority over the other ethnicities. 

So in several different ways, the dissolution of Yugoslavia was also really important for China as an example of how you shouldn’t do things if you wanted to protect the statehood.

[SOUNDBITE]

ANASTAS VANGELI: Then we have a section which is actually one of my favorite parts of the book, which focuses on the so-called people-to-people, rather socio-cultural exchanges.

So Jovana Bogojević discusses the cultural exchanges during the 50s, at the time when ideological relations were really strained, but, you know, people tried to build trust through cultural exchanges. 

PETER KORCHNAK: Even while China was still in the Soviet camp, it saw culture as an ideological tool and exchanges as a way to cultivate relations with socialist countries. Especially from the mid-1950s on, educational that is student exchanges were the most impactful, and visual art exchanges also took off, creating a foundation for developing familiarity between the two countries. Cultural cooperation then declined after 1958 when the two countries fell out, before resuming again in the early 1970 and taking off again after Mao’s death in 1976 and Tito’s visit to China in 1977.

ANASTAS VANGELI: Then Zhoe Yuguang studies the people the people exchanges in the 80s, a period when basically hundreds of delegations flocked from one side to the other. 

PETER KORCHNAK: A major part of cultural exchange in the 1970s, was played by the film Valter brani Sarajevo (Walter Defends Sarajevo), released in 1972, which became hugely popular in China. Its popularity reverberates to the present day when Chinese tourists visit the former Yugoslavia in what’s been called red tourism.

ANASTAS VANGELI: And then we have a chapter on contemporary Chinese red tourism, of basically Chinese tourists coming to the region to visit all these monuments of the revolution and sites of historical significance, sites where the fabled Yugoslav Partisan movies were made, the chapter written by Nicole Talmadge. 

PETER KORCHNAK: That part of the Yugo-China story is in the extended episode, exclusive to Yugoblok members. 

[SOUNDBITE]

ANASTAS VANGELI: China would eventually embrace the fact that, okay, we agree that we now have embarked on different ideological paths.You know, we retain our socialist system, you decided to change it. This should not be a burden and this should not prevent us from building relations. 

And it was difficult to build these relations in the 90s, because it was the end of history era when, you know, many countries in post socialist Europe were ideologically anticommunist. Of course, China was far from the actor that it is today. 

China went through this process of basically revising its whole diplomatic posture in the aftermath of the fall of socialism and Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Of course, for China, this was a shock. So the first thing was they assumed this, let’s say, low profile position in international affairs, not to further provoke animosities. But they were also reconsidering how to engage with these former socialist countries.

PETER KORCHNAK: After Yugoslavia’s dissolution, China’s relations with Yugoslavia’s successors were very much informed by the Yugoslav period and China had to reacquaint itself with the new countries as well.

ANASTAS VANGELI: And then we have two Chinese authors, Peng Yuchao and Xu Gang, discussing the legacy of starting Yugoslavia relations in today’s relations between China and the post-Yugoslav states from, let’s say, Beijing’s perspective. 

There is still, still a very strong sense that Yugoslavia was this historic example, an inspiration, a comrade country. You know, very often they would say, oh, Yugoslav and Chinese, we are brothers. You would get that on the street in China and so on. 

And this is why I think it’s very interesting to just discuss Yugoslavia, or to study Yugoslavia from this perspective with China because China is one of the places where, despite all these tragedies and despite, let’s say, official interpretations, reinterpretations, the consensus would be, and this is very broad consensus among the people, that Yugoslavia is at the end of the day, ultimately, carries some positive connotation. If you weigh the pros, cons, the tragedies, the happiness, still, there is this, this positive vibe. And this is very empowering, emancipatory, you know, when, if you’re from former Yugoslavia, you know, when you follow Western discourse, especially my generation, you know, I was born late 80s, so basically, I was a baby, when, when Yugoslavia dissolved, you know, Yugoslavia is always a burden, a trauma, a stigma, right? But in China, no, like in China, Yugoslavia is something, you know, nice and it’s good for a change.

[SOUNDBITE]

DRAGAN PAVLIĆEVIĆ: If you look at the broader European context, China has been looked at and understood as a sort of a concern, you know, a threat, ideological, economic, right. There have been, particularly in the perhaps last five or six years, really tense relations between most of the so-called political West and China. 

And these perceptions on China, and the relationship with China is basically, when you look at it from the post-Yugoslav space, very different to that. 

This sort of positive historical experience, and the positive associations that come with it, sort of also result in [the] post-Yugoslav space looking at China in a very different way To the to broader Europe, right, not understanding China as a as a as a threat, as a concern, but perhaps you know approaching it more open mindedly, and perhaps more openly.

PETER KORCHNAK: There’s the aforementioned shared history and legacy of socialism.

ANASTAS VANGELI: People in former Yugoslavia are very comfortable with the idea that socialism can actually deliver prosperity. And this is why they’re not antagonizing about China. So, you know, it’s very different, let’s say, from countries that were under Soviet dominance, very different from Western Europe, where, you know, socialism is very stigmatized. The Yugoslav experience itself creates [a] predisposition to treat a country run by a Communist Party in friendlier terms. 

And of course, there is the whole geopolitical legacy of nonalignment, which, of course, has been erased from official discourse, but it is kind of internalized at the wider societal level. 

So even when you have countries that the elite level may try to closely align with the West, you know, at the societal level, there is much less distrust towards China, than in the West or than in countries, than in other countries of Central East Europe.

PETER KORCHNAK: The Great Recession in 2008 was a major impetus for China’s opening to the world, including the former Yugoslavia.

ANASTAS VANGELI: After a global financial crisis, actually, China had its opening, not just in Europe, but worldwide, to step in as an actor who can provide not just capital, like money and investment, but also optimism, right. Since the global financial crisis, the West is trying to find its mojo. And, you know, we’ve seen all the rise of all sorts of populisms, and you know, China is the one actor that managed to offer this vision. And at this time they were open to everyone who would be open to cooperate with them. 

In the contemporary day and age, actually, most of these former Yugoslav states are approaching China very pragmatically. 

PETER KORCHNAK: China is most visibly present in the former Yugoslavia in construction projects. In Montenegro, the Chinese have built highways and clean energy power plants; cooperation with Bosnia and Herzegovina is fairly minor but again, outside of tourism, involves roads and other infrastructure.

ANASTAS VANGELI: Macedonia is a curious case lately. Also in the 90s, Macedonia was one of the countries in the world that would recognize Taiwan. So now we see Macedonia again being a bit more on the critical stance towards China. But there were times, not so long ago, when Macedonia was also optimistic, much more optimistic about the relationship and so on and so on. 

PETER KORCHNAK: China is now North Macedonia’s largest trade partner outside Europe, and China-powered infrastructure projects again are integral to the country’s development.

ANASTAS VANGELI: So now I’m based in Slovenia. Slovenia is very pragmatic when it comes to the cooperation with China. Yeah, there is awareness, let’s say, of what geopolitical sensitivity, stances of the European Union, the US, but when it comes to strategic interests of Slovenia, such as the automotive sector, you know, Slovenia was one of the countries that opposed, for instance, the tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles.

PETER KORCHNAK: Slovenia showcases the balancing act between political and economic interests. On the one hand, in line with EU’s policy China is seen as a quote unquote “systemic rival,” and on the other hand Slovenia is China’s largest (and growing) trading partner in the region. 

ANASTAS VANGELI: And then we have the chapter by Igor Rogelja and Martina Bofulin on Gorenje, the famous Yugoslav brand, which was acquired by Hisense. And also poetically ending with the story of basically, Slovenian engineers now working for Hisense in Mexico on helping develop products for the American market. 

PETER KORCHNAK: Hisense’s acquisition of the former Yugoslav giant Gorenje shows how China is using ex-Yugoslavia to gain access to Western markets. 

ANASTAS VANGELI: Croatia, again, EU member, NATO member, formally tries to navigate these geopolitical tensions, but in practice, you know, is pursuing closer cooperation with China. We see the Pelješac Bridge, which is a major infrastructural project funded by the EU, built by a Chinese company. We see now China tries to also instrumentalize Marco Polo for some pre-Yugoslav historical linkages with China. 

PETER KORCHNAK: According to one version of history, Marco Polo was born in the now Croatian island town of Korčula.

And then there’s Serbia.

ANASTAS VANGELI: China tries to build relationship[s] with everyone, and it all depends on how countries reciprocate. And it so happens that within the former Yugoslavia region, it’s Serbia who reciprocates the best to this desire.

PETER KORCHNAK: Indeed, China’s bilateral relations in the region are the strongest with Serbia. 

ANASTAS VANGELI: One, there is a strong emphasis on institutional continuity. And, you know, Serbia is considered the main successor of Yugoslavia, not just because of Belgrade being the capital. Also, there is a certain lineage there to be traced. So for them, this matters politically.

PETER KORCHNAK: Taiwan and Kosovo play a major role here, with each country considering the respective breakaway state as theirs; both China and Serbia are very much aligned on these issues. 

As they are in their opposition to Western hegemony. In the 1999 NATO campaign against then-Yugoslavia over Kosovo, Chinese embassy was quote unquote accidentally bombed by the US Air Force; the incident brought the two countries together in quote “a bond forged with blood,” or shared victimhood. The site of the former embassy in Belgrade is a major destination for Chinese tourists, as is actually Tito’s grave at the Museum of Yugoslavia.

For China, Serbia also represents the continuation of Yugoslavia’s nonalignment.

ANASTAS VANGELI: And then we have the next part of the book, which focuses on, let’s say, contemporary kind of case studies.

So we have Jelena Gledić writing on the instrumentalization of the Yugoslav past in Serbia’s contemporary relationship with China. 

There is a lot of mythologization going on and a lot of emphasis on the Yugoslav past in contemporary Serbia by the Vucic government, in order to, you know, improve the discourse and relationship with China. And if you see the outcome actually, it pays off. 

It’s very interesting how, let’s say, some of those elites in Serbia who are otherwise negatively predisposed towards the Yugoslav past or critical of the Yugoslav past in general terms, are now trying to use the Yugoslav past to improve the relationship with China. 

PETER KORCHNAK: The so-called “ironclad friendship” and cooperation between Serbia and China have been intensifying in the past decade, decade and a half. This is rooted in the perceived historical continuity of Serbia and Yugoslavia and the shared Sino-Yugoslav past in terms of socialism and nonalignment as well as trauma. It is also based on selective memory, giving rise to Sino-Yugo-nostalgia, a longing for a return of the good old days that reframes them in a positive light to build a better future. But unlike yugonostalgia, which is a bottom-up phenomenon, Sino-Yugo-nostalgia is a top-down discourse, based on the mythologized socialist past which contrasts with the world of today, which China uses in order to facilitate cooperation. 

DRAGAN PAVLIĆEVIĆ: I haven’t seen the polls recently, but I think for years, I think China was ranked number one when it came to a percentage of people who had positive views on other countries, right? So I think there was 80 plus percent of people in Serbia, you know, looking favorably on China, [a] much higher percentage than all the other you know, important countries, Russia, US, France, Germany, EU, I guess, and so on. 

PETER KORCHNAK: The tragedy in Novi Sad, where in November 2024 a canopy at the train station, remodeled by Chinese companies, collapsed and killed 16 people seems to have had little impact on this.

DRAGAN PAVLIĆEVIĆ: The anger is directed toward the government and much less toward China. I don’t have hard data, but my perception is that the China’s standing, you know, in terms of the popular perceptions of China and Serbia, has not changed much since then.

I guess the visibility of China definitely doesn’t, does not make people very concerned in Serbia, at least. I guess perhaps the associations with China are also at least partially due to that history, fairly, fairly positive.

ANASTAS VANGELI: And then Ren Canying discussing the very difficult case of Bor where we have Chinese investment in the copper mine, where we see basically tensions between the pursuit of growth and economic revival of the city at the same time, spike in pollution and environmentalist activism. 

PETER KORCHNAK: Chinese interest in mining cooperation with Yugoslavia dates back to the 1970s. Today the mine is a joint venture since 2018 of the Serbian government, which now owns 37 percent of shares, and a Chinese company which owns a majority 63 percent stake. The partnership has helped economically revitalize the region in Eastern Serbia where the mine is located, but also led to environmental degradation, mostly in the form of air pollution.

All that being said and done, it boils down to this:

DRAGAN PAVLIĆEVIĆ: Yugoslavia matters. I guess the people that listen to your podcast already know that. 

PETER KORCHNAK: In his concluding chapter, Vangeli writes, “the Yugo-Chinese past remains a living matter, shaping expectations, possibilities and constraints in the present. (…) Yugoslavia has been one of the key reference points for China and its world-making. (…) [J]ust as China’s footprint reshapes former Yugoslavia today, traces of Yugoslavia’s transformative socialist project linger in Global China’s trajectory, reactivating knowledge, memories, and sentiments often suppressed in the post-Yugoslav space itself…”

ANASTAS VANGELI: If you asked anyone in the 80s, would they think China would be so important today, they would laugh at you, you know. Especially Yugoslavs at the time, felt so superior in the relationship with China, and look at where we are now. 

History is very unpredictable, open-ended. We can keep an open mind. 

[SOUNDBITE]

PETER KORCHNAK: That’s all for this episode of Remembering Yugoslavia, thank you for listening. 

All guests’ opinions expressed are solely their own; unless otherwise noted they do not express, reflect, or represent the views or opinions of any third party, including myself. 

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Outro music courtesy of Robert Petrić. Interludes courtesy of Sticky Keys.

I am Peter Korchňak. 

Zai Jian!

ANASTAS VANGELI: When you’re in China, you start to talk to people like no one really knows when you say where you’re from. No one knows the small post Yugoslav countries, but everyone knows Yugoslavia.