We looked at 30 years of political and trade relations between Slovakia and China as well as the context of the current trade wars.
During a recent visit to China by a Slovak government delegation, a number of government and trade agreements were signed. Slovakia has upgraded its relations to a strategic partnership, having already 14th country within the European Union member states with this status or higher.
The visit to China represented the largest government delegation with trade, economic and investment intentions this year. China, as the second largest country in the world in terms of population and GDP, is a major player in international affairs, trade and investment. Within the EU, China is the largest import partner (20.5% in 2023) and the third largest export partner (8.7% in 2023). China is Slovakia’s largest trading partner in Asia in terms of total foreign trade turnover as of 2017.
In the Slovak Republic’s strategic documents, “Foreign Policy Focus of the Slovak Republic”, China has had a first and central place within the Indo-Pacific region during each government. China was also mentioned in the 2012 government’s programmatic statement under the BRICS grouping.
At the level of Slovakia’s bilateral government visits to China (counting each member of the government separately), China ranks 18th in the number of all visits by government officials since 1993 globally. This surpasses the number of visits to many EU Member States, such as Sweden, Portugal, Greece and Bulgaria. The highest number of visits was made during the 2016-2020 electoral period (28%), i.e. the third government of R. Fico and the government of P. Pellegrini. This was followed by the first government of R. Fico (15%) and the second government of R. Fico (15%). The two governments of M. Dzurinda accounted for 13% of all visits to China.
These visits were mainly of a sectoral nature, with most of them being made by ministers and state secretaries from the economy (17%), finance (16%), foreign affairs (11%), education (8%) and agriculture (7%). The nature of relations with China was thus mainly trade and economic.
China has been the long-term (1993-2023) leader in the ranking of destinations of state visits from Slovakia within the Indo-Pacific region and also the entire Asian continent. Within the Indo-Pacific region, the largest number of government visits were to China (32.55%), Japan (12.42%), Korea (11.35%), India and Vietnam (7.92%). These 5 countries account for approximately 72% of all visits from Slovakia to the region. Similarly, the largest number of agreements was signed with China (21.43%). By 2023, 24 bilateral agreements and documents had been signed, most of them being agreements and MoUs between ministries such as education, culture and agriculture.
It can also be noted that the correlation between government visits and exports to China shows a slight tightness, which may indicate the importance of the instrument of foreign trips of government officials to countries for Slovak exports. However, countries in the region reach higher correlation tightness with imports, which is due to the traditional negative trade balance, as Slovakia imports much more from these countries. The rapid growth of the East and South-East Asian economies has caused a significant increase in imports into Slovakia, especially in the last decade.
The need for balance for the EU?
The data shows that the Slovak government delegation to China only confirmed the long-term trend of China’s dominance of Slovak foreign policy in Asia. However, the ability of both Slovakia and the EU to artfully pursue their trade interests in today’s volatile and tariff-laden trading world is key.
The European Union has called China a “systemic rival” and the new commission will will seek to to be more assertive in protecting the economy, but the principle of ‘de-risking, not decoupling’ will apply. On the one hand, the EU imports essential products (chips and precious elements) that are needed for green transit or car production, and stopping imports from China would be devastating for the EU. On the other hand, the EU has introduced tariffs on subsidised electric cars from China for BYD (17.0%), Geely (18.8%), SAIC (35.3%), with Slovakia, Germany, Hungary, Slovenia and Malta voting against.
The EU is thus still balancing between protecting its own economic interests by developing trade relations as well as by imposing tariffs. This contrasting situation is evidenced by the rift between Germany and France over the actual imposition of tariffs against China. Moreover, China is trying to avoid current and future tariffs on electric cars and other products by planning to build its own factories inside the EU or in its neighbourhood.
Finally, it can be added that the ‘systemic rival’ from the East is unlikely to be the only trade competitor in the coming years. Following the election of Donald Trump to the US presidency, another ‘tariff’ competitor is also emerging in the West.
Author: Filip Šandor, Faculty of Natural Sciences, Comenius University Bratislava, EXPORT ANALYTICA
