The Baltics and China: Changing Equations

The centrality of security concerns has driven foreign policy of the Baltic states as they regained independence in 1991 and pushed them to seek membership of organisations like the EU and the NATO. Russia looms large in their security calculus given their size, geographical location and historical experience of loss of independence and domination. Thus, even post EU and NATO membership security questions remain ever relevant. It is in this context that the paper looks at the Baltic-China equation. Looking beyond Europe, in Asia, China is an important player. China tailored the 16+1(17+1 after Greece joined) to engage with Central and East European countries in 2012 and the Baltics reciprocated. Subsequently, their reservation about China for posing a challenge to the rules-based international order has rapidly increased. The chapter argues that while the foreign policy choices that the Baltic states made of aligning with the US and their membership in the EU and NATO have increased their ‘action capacity’, their ‘vulnerability’ vis-à-vis Russia continues and both ‘action capacity’ and ‘vulnerability’ are at play in conditioning their current relation with China.