Baltic States Linking Up with New Silk Road

The Berlin-based web journal Telepolis on March 14 had an article describing how the three Baltic states are intensifying economic cooperation deals with China, as well as considering to become the Baltic ends of the New Silk Road infrastructure grid which China is building. In April, Latvia’s capital Riga will host an EU-Asia summit, which is to deal with that, in more detail. During the visit to Latvia of a Chinese government delegation in February, a deal was signed between the Latvian milk-producing firm Food Union and the third-largest Chinese food producer Bright Food, based in Shanghai. The China Harbour Engineering Company last autumn signed a contract with the Latvian Riga Coal Terminal, also for the expansion of capacity. The Chinese Embassy in Riga also has considerably expanded its staff.

Lithuania has been falling behind, due to President Dalia Grybauskaite’s endorsement of the Dalai Lama and the Tibet separatism from China. Osvaldas Ciuksys, the head of the Lithuanian-Chinese Chamber of Commerce however has criticized Grybauskaite for that, blaming her for the lack of profitable deals with China. Only in February, have relations between both countries warmed a bit, so that there is now an option of talks, predominantly on Lithuanian exports of agricultural products to China.

Estonia, which officially received the Dalai Lama in 2011, suffered from a freeze of economic relations with China, which was lifted when the Estonians apologized in 2014, so that at the end of January, the agriculture ministers of both countries signed a cooperation agreement in preparation of Estonian farm products to China. Furthermore, the Estonian port of Tallinn is being modernized and expanded with Chinese input.

Ironically, for the time being, until better and direct railway connections are established, the Baltic states and China use the “Northern Distribution Network,” a set of transport routes which originally were put together by Russia and NATO, to transfer matériel from Europe to the Western forces in Afghanistan.