The Steel Opaqueness and Semi-Authoritarianism

Abstract Serbia, though aiming to join the EU, has developed a multifaceted relationship with China, dubbed “the steel friendship.” The authors delve into selected aspects of Sino-Serbian economic and security cooperation, examining infrastructure projects, as well as the opaqueness behind surveillance technology within the Belgrade-Beijing collaboration on security matters. These areas share, as a common denominator, political elites bypassing the existing legal framework and trying to enact new laws contrary to EU standards, leading to abuses of personal data, biometric surveillance, and deficiencies in the implementation of Chinese-backed projects, all of which reflect the authoritarian nature of the Serbian regime. The authors discuss a rarely addressed topic, focusing on the Serbian political elite’s exploitation of economic cooperation and its abuse of surveillance technology to infringe on citizens’ rights. Our article complements the scholarship on semi-authoritarianism, state capture, the Chinese role in the Western Balkans, and, most notably, security cooperation between Beijing and Belgrade.