Author: David Batashvili, Research Fellow at Rondeli Foundation

 

China Radar: South Caucasus is a monthly publication by Rondeli Foundation (GFSIS) dedicated to China’s activities and influence in the three nations of South Caucasus.

With the global rise of great power tensions and competition related to China’s role in the world, Rondeli Foundation began to take a closer look at China’s role in our own region. Since July 2020, we have been publishing China’s Activities in the South Caucasus digest that exhaustively covers events and developments in this regard. China Radar builds on China’s Activities digest to provide experts, researchers, civil servants and other observers of China’s foreign strategy with a comprehensive summary of China’s political, diplomatic, economic, informational, soft power and other activities towards Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia as well as these nations’ stances and actions concerning China.

Sources of information provided in China Radar can be found in the issues of China’s Activities digest covering the relevant months unless indicated otherwise. All issues of both China Radar and China’s Activities digest can be found on Rondeli Foundation’s China Watch page.

 

China-Georgia Strategic Partnership

On 10 April, China and Georgia signed an agreement on mutual exemption of ordinary passport holders from visa requirements.

 

China’s Presence, Activities and Influence in the South Caucasus

Propaganda and Disinformation

In a material published on 19 April, Chinese foreign ministry once again attacked Georgia’s democratic Rose Revolution of 2003, blaming it on the United States.

 

Political Activities

During the high political tensions in Georgia caused by the Georgian Dream government’s introduction of the “foreign influence” law, on 15 April 2024, a CCP delegation led by Chen Zhou, Deputy Head of the International Department of the CCP Central Committee, met with the chairman of the Georgian Dream party, Irakli Garibashvili. The conversation’s topics reportedly included “political situation in Georgia.”

During the same visit, the CCP delegation also presented to Georgia’s ruling party “Xi Jinping’s Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era.”

 

Diplomatic Messaging

Deputy head of the International Department of the CCP Central Committee Chen Zhou, on a visit to Armenia on 17-19 April, expressed support for Yerevan’s Crossroads of Peace regional transportation development initiative, saying China “saw an opportunity for cooperation within the framework of the Belt and Road Initiative.”

 

South Caucasus Actors Expressing Support for China

On 19 April, CEO of the Georgia Development Foundation, Besik Bujanishvili, said in his speech at the World Internet Conference Digital Silk Road Development Forum in Xi’an, China that Georgia was “proud to be a part of this grand vision” of the Belt and Road Imitative.

 

Stances and Activities by Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia Benefiting China’s Foreign Policy

Support for China and its Policies

Georgia’s foreign minister Ilia Darchiashvili referred to China as “a symbol of the multipolar world.”