A Study On The "17+1 Cooperation" Between China And Central And Eastern European Countries From The Perspective Of Sub-regional Cooperation

After the end of the Cold War,16 European countries from the former Soviet bloc and formed through territorial changes chose to "return to Europe",joining European integration and making transitions at home.They are collectively referred to as "Central and Eastern European countries"(CEECs),of which 11 has successfully joined the EU,and the other five are at different stages of accession.Having returned to Europe,economically,the CEECs still lag behind and largely depend on their Western counterparts,which caused them severe blow during the European debt crisis and drove them to turn their focus of cooperation outside Europe.Meanwhile,CEECs began to seek their interests and values in the EU,but diverged broadly with the EU and the major powers of Western Europe in terms of in the way of integration,domestic politics,home affairs of the Union,and foreign relations,which caused the EU to become somewhat "sub-regionalized" in its regional integration.Against this background,China has unprecedentedly regarded the 16 CEECs as a group,and launched trans-regional cooperation at the sub-regional level in form of"the Cooperation between China and Central and Eastern European Countries"(China-CEEC),or the“16+1”cooperation,established in the year 2012,and expanded to the“17+1”cooperation in 2019.The establishment of this cooperation has opened up a new,sub-regional level in Sino-European relations,complementing the shortcomings of the relations which had previously put much more emphasis on the Western part,providing a new growth point and giving new meaning to the relations.The“17+1”Cooperation mainly takes advantages of the geographical location and market conditions of the Central and Eastern European subregion,and China’s advantages in capital,production capacity;and carries out multi-field cooperation centred on trade,investment,infrastructure and interconnectivity construction.Due to the loose nature of the CEE subregion,bilateral relations and cooperation have a fundamental position in“17+1" cooperation in the meantime,China has also made greater innovations in the construction of multilateral institutions.Besides the high level and high frequency of leaders’ summit,it has also established a secretariat with the preliminary feature of an international organization has also been established,and a series of sectorial cooperation mechanisms that through which it shares its leading role with member countries of CEE.Compared with more common regional-level trans-regional cooperation,“17+1”cooperation faces extra impact from the regional level;especially in Europe under unique supranational integration processes.It is inevitable to encounter the obstacle of EU rules and opposition to the intergovernmental cooperation mechanism formed between CEE subregion and China,due to EU’s different stance,goals,values and preferences;mainly including the aversion to "Chinese model" entering Europe through CEE,and concerns over the new level’ impact to pre-existing problems in EU-China relations and in EU solidarity.