Kosovo and Taiwan Eye an Alliance of Outsiders

Nowhere is Washington held in higher esteem than in the small Balkan nation of Kosovo. On Bill Clinton Boulevard in Pristina, Kosovo’s capital, a statue of the former U.S. president waves cheerily to passersby. Clinton’s secretary of state, Madeleine Albright—who in 1999 pushed for U.S. intervention against Serbia in the Kosovo War—is honored with a small plaza and bust near Pristina’s city center.

But the love is faltering. On April 23, Kosovo held elections in four majority-Serb municipalities in the north of the country. Pristina’s refusal to address calls for greater autonomy in these districts led to a Serb boycott of the elections, leaving turnout at around 3.5 percent. Unopposed, the Albanian candidates were voted in. Violent protests ensued in late May, when those candidates assumed the mayorships of the municipalities. Serb protesters attacked Kosovar police and NATO peacekeepers, and dozens were injured on each side. Kosovar Prime Minister Albin Kurti branded the protesters a “fascist militia” and blamed Serbia and its populist President Aleksandar Vucic for orchestrating the boycott and unrest.

As a result of its displeasure with Kurti’s handling of the situation, Washington took a series of punitive measures, including excluding Kosovo from Defender 23, NATO’s largest-ever air drill, which ran for two months from the eve of the elections. A temporary freeze by Washington on diplomacy was reported, and the U.S. ambassador in Pristina, Jeffrey Hovenier, warned that enthusiasm for supporting Kosovo’s ascension to NATO and the United Nations had waned.

Watching with concern is Taiwan, whose exchanges with Kosovo in recent years have been facilitated by Washington—a champion of these two small, internationally marginalized countries. Taiwan’s trade officials and experts view the Central and Eastern European countries (CEECs) as a gateway to the European Union, and they hope to cultivate deeper ties with the region.

Although Kosovo is recognized by more than half of the United Nations’ 193 members and Taiwan enjoys full diplomatic relations with only 13 sovereign states, both countries have seen access to the U.N. and other international organizations blocked by hostile, more powerful neighbors. These two larger countries—Serbia and China—deny the de facto independence of their smaller neighbors. Serbia’s statements on Kosovo might be a notch down from China’s bellicosity on Taiwan, but adjectives such as “inalienable” and “integral” routinely precede claims of sovereignty in the rhetoric issuing from Beijing and Belgrade.

Support for Taiwan has grown among the CEECs in recent years, with the Czech Republic and Lithuania particularly outspoken in Taipei’s favor, and the latter country subjected to Chinese economic coercion for its troubles. The Western Balkans might seem peripheral to Taiwan’s ambitions, but growing discontent with China’s presence there has created a sense of opportunity that, with Washington’s backing, Taipei will hope to leverage.

“The CEECs showed an interest at the right moment,” said Marc Cheng, the executive director of the EU Centre in Taiwan—part of an international network of university-based institutions funded by the European Commission. Cheng cites Taiwan’s “mask diplomacy”—which saw Taipei’s donation of millions of masks to Europe reciprocated with tens of thousands of vaccines from Lithuania and Slovakia—as having driven engagement. There is also the sense of the Balkans as the last frontier in Europe. “Emerging markets are always an opportunity,” Cheng told Foreign Policy. “So it makes sense that Taiwan has started to shift its focus east to the Balkans after some years of engagement with more central European countries.”

Albanian President Edi Rama captured the prevailing mood among the CEECs in February when he spoke of “zero” benefits to his country from the cooperative bloc between China and the CEECs . Previously dubbed the 17+1, the initiative was ostensibly Beijing’s attempt to promote cooperation on infrastructure, trade, and investment under its broader Belt and Road Initiative. Lithuania withdrew from the 17+1 in May 2021, with its fellow Baltic states Latvia and Estonia following suit a year later, reducing the initiative to 14+1. All three countries cited respect for human rights and “the international rules-based order” as driving the decision.

Following a meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken in May, during which U.S. concerns about Chinese influence in the CEECs were discussed, Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky dismissed the 14+1 as having “neither substance nor future.” He emphasized Prague’s commitment to a “European framework” and close ties with Washington, a recurring theme among CEECs when discussing the initiative. The 14+1 is now widely viewed as part of a “divide-and-rule” strategy intended to drive a wedge between the CEECs and the West.

In the Balkans, frustrations with public infrastructure projects under the 14+1 include missed deadlines, spiraling costs (and, thus, debts from Chinese loans), and shoddy workmanship. China’s reticence to use local labor or to grant access to Chinese markets has also caused issues. Unfulfilled pledges, a lack of transparency, and scant tangible benefits have led many leaders in the region to conclude that the initiative is little more than an attempt by Beijing to exert soft power influence.

Such concerns were manifest in the decision of most Balkan nations to join the Clean Network initiative launched by the administration of former U.S. President Donald Trump in 2020. This program targets “intrusions by malign actors, such as the Chinese Communist Party” by preventing the involvement of companies such as Huawei and ZTE in 5G networks. “Originally, there was a big commitment from China, so the CEECs expected they could gain infrastructure, economic growth, and expanded market access to China,” Cheng said. “But the result was empty words. And now it’s easy to see China’s image in the region is no longer one of a benign power.”

For both Taiwan and Kosovo, there is also the democracy-authoritarianism dichotomy. Again, Serbia is not China. Large-scale protests against the Vucic administration in June show the strength of civil society. Still, there are fears among pro-democracy activists in Serbia of a creep toward autocracy.

Serbia remains China’s strongest ally in the Balkans, having received billions of dollars in soft loans over the past 15 years. In the wake of May’s post-election violence in Kosovo, China urged NATO to respect Serbia’s “territorial integrity.” Vucic has explicitly tied Belgrade’s support for Beijing’s “One China” principle to the Kosovo question. With Chinese and Russian support, Serbia blocks Kosovo’s ascension to international bodies.

China’s support for Belgrade and frequent criticism of NATO has particular resonance when it comes to Kosovo. The bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade during NATO’s air strikes against Yugoslavia in the Kosovo War looms large in the memory of Chinese officials. Weeks before the election unrest, Chinese diplomats in Belgrade held a ceremony to mark the 24th anniversary of the event.

Against this backdrop, U.S.-backed exchanges between Taiwan and Kosovo have blossomed. In March, the first-ever parliamentary delegation from the Balkans visited Taipei. with legislators from Romania, North Macedonia, and Kosovo participating. “When it comes to official diplomatic relations, frankly, we can’t do anything without the U.S.’ blessing,” said Lulzim Peci, the executive director of the Kosovar Institute for Policy Research and Development. He acknowledged similarities between Kosovo and Taiwan. “We’re at the forefront of a clash between America and China,” he told Foreign Policy. “Like Taiwan, Kosovo is a U.S. product; we both survive because of their support.”

Ana Krstinovska, the founder and president of Estima, a North Macedonia-based think-tank, sees likely Chinese retaliation for a Kosovo that “gets too cozy with Taiwan,” in the form of continued obstacles to U.N. accession. Ultimately, though, she believes that Kosovo must make a careful choice based on circumstances. “At some point, they may give up on hope that China will ever recognize them and decide to go a step further with Taiwan,” she said. “It’s still a legitimate policy decision, but it should be an informed decision.”

Peci is more optimistic. “For Kosovo, U.N. membership is not that important—it’s just prestige,” said Peci, a former ambassador of Kosovo in Stockholm. “In pragmatic terms, the priority is to become a member of the EU and especially NATO. China can do nothing about this.”

Enver Hasani, a former president of Kosovo’s constitutional court who also previously headed Kosovo’s Office of Foreign Relations, agrees. “China cannot harm us any more than they already do,” he said. “They will not endorse us because of Serbia, so we lose nothing.”

Still, Hasani questioned the wisdom of Kosovo’s moves to bolster ties with Taiwan. He also believes that the recent Taipei trip came at Washington’s behest. “I don’t understand why our allies would push our dignitaries to do this, as it’s to the detriment of Kosovo, and Taiwan gains nothing,” he said. “What Taiwan needs is international space. If it wants an anchor into Europe, it would be much better off approaching larger regional powers.”

A prominent member of the Kosovar delegation to Taipei was Avdullah Hoti, a former prime minister and current co-chair of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC), an international cross-party group of legislators that focuses on strategic approaches to relations with China among democratic countries. The alliance aims to hold China to account in five areas: human rights, security, trade, the international rules-based order, and crucially, the national integrity of other countries—especially emerging economies with weak institutions.

Incensed by Hoti’s meeting with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen and Taiwanese government ministers during the visit, the Chinese Embassy in Serbia accused the Kosovar legislator of “openly supporting the separatist forces” and “violating China’s national sovereignty and territorial integrity.”

At the headquarters of the Democratic League of Kosovo—the political party that Hoti represents—in the Kosovo Assembly building, Hoti discussed his support for Taiwan in terms that mirror Beijing’s criticism. “Actually, it’s about respecting the sovereignty and territorial integrity of small countries,” he told Foreign Policy. “If we don’t have these principles, large, strong countries could invade [anywhere in] the world and make arrangements to divide it, just as they used to.”

Hoti explained his IPAC role in straightforward terms. “We’re coordinating actions among democracies to counterbalance China,” he said. “We have to contain the pressure that China is using all over the world to spread its political influence.” Efforts to engage Taiwan are part of this strategy. “By connecting with our colleagues in Taipei, we are trying to break the isolation that Taiwan has faced for far too long,” he said. In March, Honduras became the ninth country to end diplomatic relations with Taiwan since Tsai assumed office in 2016.

He also talked up prospects for economic cooperation, citing potential “dual projects” in the information technology sector and the possibility of opening a Kosovo-based branch of Taiwan External Trade Development Council, the quasi-governmental trade body through which Taiwan maintains a presence in other Balkan countries. Because these offices operate in the margins, essentially as nongovernmental organizations, they are unlikely to ruffle Beijing’s feathers. “We have 12,000 to 15,000 students in IT, and we’re very much a digitalized economy with high internet penetration, so we could provide services for Taiwanese companies. This is an aim,” Hoti said.

Yet he admits that a deeper trade and investment relationship is unlikely to lead to progress on the political front: “For the time being, until the political landscape changes a bit, economics may be the only way to increase relations.”

Hoti also feels that parallels between Kosovo’s and Taiwan’s ostracism from international organizations are overplayed, and he agrees with Peci’s assessment that NATO and EU access, rather than the U.N., are Kosovo’s priorities. “We’re facing very different challenges in the international arena,” he said.

But for some, the U.N. issue is part of a deeper problem for Kosovo. “Our chances of becoming a U.N. member are as weak as Taiwan,” Hasani said. “But [the] Taiwan [issue] has weight, and it is highly unlikely that the West will work with the Chinese to decide the future of Taiwan any time soon.”

In contrast, Kosovo’s status had looked eminently more resolvable—at least, before the post-election contretemps with Washington. The ongoing EU-brokered Belgrade-Pristina Dialogue stands in sharp contrast to high-level cross-strait communication, which has been at a  standstill for years now.

For this reason. Hasani remains confused as to the logic of Kosovo-Taiwan ties. “That’s the big difference in our situations,” he said. “So, ties with Taiwan exacerbate our chances.”