"Croatia’s China-built, EU-funded bridge to open over troubled waters" 30 June 2022

On a glistening white bridge suspended above the deep blue Adriatic Sea off Croatia, engineer Davor Peric proudly shows off the smooth layer of asphalt stretching across its length.

This asphalt, specially designed to withstand salt water, is a Croatian product but most of the Pelješac Bridge is not.

The 2.4km (1.5-mile) structure was built by China Bridge and Road Corporation (CRBC), the first Chinese company to win a bid for a project co-funded by the European Union.

And the firm came equipped to impress: more than 70,000 tonnes of steel was cast in Chinese factories and brought to Croatia on seven boats. With it came 22 different vessels, including a crane with a load capacity of 1,000 tonnes, an unusual sight for a region in serious need of infrastructure investment. [...]

Despite the smooth completion of the project, experts on the ground say China’s way of doing business and its rigid Covid-19 response have damaged its relationships in the Western Balkans – a strategic belt and road transit corridor and an entry point to EU markets – just as the region’s geopolitical importance is rising. [...]

While projects involving Ukraine and Russia have halted, security concerns are also driving Central and Eastern European countries away from China and towards Washington and Nato. [...]

But here, over the course of the coronavirus pandemic, various Chinese-linked projects have stalled.

A thermal power plant expansion project in Bosnia and Herzegovina is being re-evaluated due to environmental concerns, while Chinese deal makers have disappeared from the region, likely due to stringent travel restrictions back home.

Chinese workers labouring on the bridge spent months isolated and unable to return home, but the heavy metal gates of the Chinese embassy in Croatia’s capital Zagreb remained firmly closed. [...]

Last year, the new Montenegro government turned to Western banks to renegotiate the interest rate on a Chinese policy bank loan that represented one-fifth of its annual GDP. [...]