Beijing’s ties with Moscow behind hardening Polish views on China

Mindful of how difficult it can be to see the right people in Beijing, Polish officials wanted to insert some structure and reciprocity into the relationship, according to people familiar with the strategy. Touring envoys can be granted an audience, but only if Warsaw sees some advantage to it.

When the Chinese envoy for Eurasian affairs, Li Hui, stopped off in Warsaw on his way back from Kyiv in May, he met deputy foreign minister Wojciech Gerwel. Polish diplomats worked all week to ensure their account of the meeting would come out before Beijing’s, aware that whoever’s version came first would enjoy a bump in media coverage.

It is dry diplomatic choreography, but it underpins a major shift in how China is viewed in Poland, the most populous country in central and eastern Europe (CEE). It is a region-wide trend that Beijing is struggling to buck.

Over a period of years, previously warm bilateral ties gradually – and then suddenly – became strained.

They were tested by joint Sino-Russian naval exercises in the Baltic Sea in 2017 and the Polish government’s unwavering support for the Donald Trump administration in Washington – and his hardline approach to Beijing.

Poland had been an enthusiastic founding member of the 16+1, an economic grouping of CEE countries launched by China a decade ago. But like its neighbours, Poland grew tired of what it saw as unfulfilled promises from the Chinese side.

According to a source involved at the time, Beijing kept making proposals that worked fine in the non-EU Balkan states, but which were incompatible with Brussels’ labour and lending laws. Eventually, they had to ask the Chinese side to stop pitching these deals altogether.

Then the Chinese government’s clunky Wolf Warrior diplomacy through the pandemic darkened the mood among the Polish public. A survey taken by the Central European Institute of Asian Studies in autumn 2020, in the midst of lockdowns, found that just 7.9 per cent of Poles held a “very positive” view of China, with 34 per cent saying their opinions had worsened.

It was not always like this. In 1957, then-premier Zhou Enlai was granted a hero’s welcome when he visited the Polish capital – “the only time a Communist official was greeted with genuine warmth”, an ex-diplomat quipped.

This came after Zhou backed Poland’s efforts in 1956 to “obtain independence” from the Soviet Union to govern its own affairs, helping avert the sort of brutal put-down Soviet ruler Nikita Khrushchev ordered in Hungary that year.

But Russia’s invasion of Ukraine changed everything. In this part of the world, Beijing’s rhetorical backing of Moscow’s grievances with Nato and the United States is viewed with extreme distaste.

“The point of no return has been and still continues to be China’s tacit approval for the war in Ukraine,” said Alicja Bachulska, a Warsaw-based policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations.

“We don’t have evidence that China is actively sending weapons to Russia. But nevertheless, people see the kind of messaging consistently coming from Beijing.”

The yellow and blue of Ukraine’s flag is peppered across Warsaw – it is hoisted outside government buildings and adorns people’s windowsills, adding a splash of colour to the grey spring weather.

The populist right-wing government, which is vehemently anti-migrant, has thrown the border open to Ukrainian refugees, with an estimated 1.4 million people remaining in the country as of February, a year into the war.

“China is important, but for us the main challenge is Ukraine, and everything else is through that lens – including our relationship with China,” said a Polish official, who like all government staff spoken to for this article, requested anonymity to speak freely.

An Asian diplomat in Warsaw complained that it was impossible to discuss anything else. Events that do not have Ukraine on the agenda are often sidetracked by debate about the war. “These events all seem to be about saying their piece on Ukraine to a bigger and bigger crowd,” the diplomat griped.

But while much of Europe was outraged by Beijing’s refusal to condemn Russia’s invasion last February, in Poland it came as no surprise.

In 2014, Polish diplomats were among those who lobbied in the Chinese capital for a reaction to Moscow’s annexation of Crimea. They “spoke to anyone who would listen”, said a diplomat involved, couching the situation in terms they thought might resonate in Beijing, such as “territorial integrity”.

But the response then was much the same as the response now, they said, with their interlocutors responding evasively about the “complexity” and “uniqueness” of the situation in Ukraine.

On the eve of last year’s invasion, Polish President Andrzej Duda travelled to Beijing to meet Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping ahead of the Winter Olympics. With war on Poland’s doorstep looming large, it was, said multiple people involved in the planning, an attempt to make sure Xi heard “our side of the story” as well as that of Russia’s Vladimir Putin.

The president’s palace is less hawkish than the foreign ministry, and Duda has a good relationship with Xi. Palace sources said Duda thought he could have some sway over Xi, whom he met two days after he agreed to a “no limits” partnership with Putin. They scoff at Western European criticism of the trip. Unlike the leaders of Germany and France, said an official, at least Duda did not travel with a gaggle of business executives.

But over the near 18-month conflict, even this arm of the Polish government has grown weary of China’s stance. In Beijing’s position paper for ending the war, there was “nothing that makes sense to us”, the official said.

Perhaps reading the room, there have been fewer calls and meeting requests from Beijing since the war began. “They know our position, maybe this is why they don’t call so much,” they added.

At the same time, Poland has hitched its wagon even more tightly to the US.

The war has been a reminder to many on the EU’s eastern flank that Washington remains its guarantor of security, and Warsaw has become more vocal in backing American foreign policy aims on China.

It is accepted across the government that US support for Ukraine is not guaranteed, and that Poland should “show the links between Ukraine and Taiwan” to keep Washington on side.

“Bilaterally, China is not really a direct challenge to Poland. But what is a challenge is how China reshapes the international norms and the international system of which Poland is one of the major beneficiaries, in terms of politics and economics as part of the EU and security as part of Nato,” said Grzegorz Stec, a Polish analyst on EU-China relations, based in Brussels.

In April, Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki did what many Western European governments dare not and linked the war in Ukraine to a potential conflict in Taiwan.

“You need to support Ukraine if you want Taiwan to stay as it is … if Ukraine gets conquered, the next day, China can attack Taiwan,” Morawiecki said.

Despite the shift, Poland is not yet Lithuania. Unlike its Baltic colleague, Warsaw is determined not to burn its bridges with Beijing. When Taiwanese Foreign Minister Joseph Wu visited in 2021, for example, the government did not even issue a press release.