Editor’s take: The discrete charm of dictatorship

China’s President Xi Jinping has been received in Serbia and Hungary as the messiah in scenes reminiscent of communist times, where Belgrade and Budapest were decorated with flags and posters, and citizens were bussed in to greet important visitors.

Seen from Brussels, it’s disturbing that Serbia, an EU candidate country, agrees to a “shared future” with communist China while Hungary, an EU member, wants to use Beijing’s visit as a counterweight to the ‘pressure from the EU’.

Of course, the issue of Chinese investment may appear to be a boon for two countries under economic strain. But there is also something else.

China is a communist country and a major geopolitical player, but today, it also represents, better than any other country, state capitalism.

In contrast, the EU, a more modest geopolitical player, represents, better than others, liberal capitalism based on strict rules and regulations.

In liberal capitalism, you can succeed if you are smarter, faster, more innovative — and if you stick to the rules.

In state capitalism, you can succeed if you are in power or if you obey those in power.

Unlike liberal capitalism, state capitalism is a system in which those in power don’t change.

This is precisely what makes the Chinese system appealing to Viktor Orbán, in power since 2010, and to Aleksandar Vučić, on the top since 2014 as prime minister and from 2017 as president.

After so many years in power, both are starting to feel the heat from dissent.

In China, dissent has become impossible. Facial recognition cameras follow citizens’ every move. Running a red light is documented, and the state notes each time a citizen trespasses a rule. Payments are made only by smartphone, and the state knows how many beers a citizen drinks and how many cigarettes he or she smokes.

Such data allows the rating of citizens, which is how some accede to jobs and credits while others don’t.

Serbia is introducing Chinese mass surveillance cameras. MEPs have warned against this Orwellian novelty, but the development has remained largely unnoticed or neglected.

China will soon see itself as the world’s number-one power, but it remains patient until then. In the meantime, it has geopolitical ambitions in the EU, as in all other parts of the world.

And this is not about building a railway—as with the Chinese project to link the Greek port of Piraeus (which was sold to China because the EU was stupid enough to press Greece to sell its best assets) to Belgrade and Budapest.

It’s more than transport infrastructure as China is introducing its political infrastructure in the EU via Serbia and Hungary.

China is banking on this example, which is becoming contagious. Ambitious European leaders who came to power on a nationalist ticket would like to cement their power. The first example that comes to mind is the new leadership of North Macedonia, a country along the way of the same railway.

Before the EU awakes to reality, EU members Slovakia and Bulgaria and EU hopefuls Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro might join the bandwagon.

It’s sad that such commentary comes just after 9 May, a special day for Europe, even more, because this year it’s the launch of the European elections campaign.

In Brussels, some humorously call 9 May “La Saint Schuman” after Robert Schuman, author of the historic Schuman declaration, which set out his idea for a new form of political cooperation in Europe that would make war between Europe’s nations unthinkable.

If we have two wars at the gate of Europe today, it doesn’t mean that Schuman was wrong. It means that the existing political cooperation in Europe is not what it should be.

[Edited by Alice Taylor]