Central and Eastern Europe Between Washington, Beijing and Brussels: How Does the Visegrad Group Embed Its Hedge Amid the Return of Trump?

By Longtai Zhang

Longtai Zhang is an affiliated researcher with the Ghent Institute for International and European Studies (GIES).

As strategic tensions between the U.S. and China escalate and the EU consolidates its ‘de-risking’ agenda, member states in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) confront increasingly complex choices. This paper examines the Visegrad Group’s practice of embedded hedging—a careful balancing act that retains security reliance on Washington while pursuing discrete economic cooperation with Beijing, all from within the EU’s regulatory framework. Through comparative analysis, it illustrates how technical obfuscation, low-profile engagements, and debates over policy wording can soften collective European measures. As U.S. pressure and EU economic security tools expand, this pivotal swing role may intensify, making close scrutiny of Council negotiations and project-level developments essential for policymakers.

Introduction

The ‘Trump 2.0’ era has intensified external pressure on EU-China relations. Washington has returned to trade coercion, wielding a ‘reciprocal tariff’ system that imposes layered, country-specific rates. This makes trade exposure more acute for the EU, while sharpening expectations for alignment with U.S. strategy towards China. (Reuters, 2025a). For many small EU member states, this reality raises the stakes: hedging becomes costlier when security still depends on Washington, yet economic lifelines remain tied to global—and Chinese—supply chains.

Meanwhile, the EU itself has shifted from lofty strategy to gritty economic security management. The Commission’s framework promotes targeted tools—screening foreign investments, coordinating export controls, reviewing outbound flows—all framed as calibrated ‘de-risking’ rather than blunt decoupling (European Commission, 2024a, 2024b). This mirrors the earlier mantra that guided the bloc’s approach: reduce dependencies in key sectors, but avoid a full break (European Commission, 2023).

The Visegrad Group brings together four Central and Eastern European countries (CEECs)—Czechia, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia—is steadily recalibrating its stance vis-à-vis the key power centres of Washington, Brussels, and Beijing. Within the V4, domestic political shifts are reshaping national preferences and their advocacy in Brussels. For instance, Karol Nawrocki’s presidential win in Poland bolsters nationalist veto power, potentially hardening a security-first economic policy (Erling & Lubowicka, 2025). Under Andrej Babiš, the new Czech coalition’s Eurosceptic tilt promises a transactional EU bargaining style and a readiness to unravel bloc-wide rules (Reuters, 2025b). Slovakia’s Robert Fico has openly pursued closer ties with China outside traditional EU and NATO channels, using external diversification as leverage inside the EU (Reuters, 2024). Hungary solidifies its position as Beijing’s foremost EU partner, reinforced by consistent high-level engagement and dedicated economic ventures (Fehér, 2025).

With Hungary and Poland holding successive Council presidencies in 2024–2025, the V4 gained unusual agenda-setting influence. Together, these factors position the group as a potential swing force—able to dilute, delay, or redirect EU-wide China policy as great-power tensions rise.

Conceptual Framework

In contexts of uncertainty, hedging maintains flexibility by blending cooperation with defensive ‘insurance’ (Lim & Mukherjee, 2019; Kuik, 2021). This paper frames V4 conduct as embedded hedging: balancing U.S. security ties with selective Chinese economic projects, yet operating within the EU’s legal and political confines. EU tools restrain China links, while Council mechanisms—like the rotating Presidency—allow tactical agenda-setting (Council of the EU, n.d.). Hence, the V4 employs EU-compliant moves: diluting, narrowing, or delaying initiatives.

V4 cases and patterns of embedded hedging

Amid ‘Trump 2.0’ pressure and the EU’s push to de-risk, the V4 must weigh U.S. security against economic ties with China. Here, Poland, Czechia, Slovakia, and Hungary each practice embedded hedging differently—varying their security stance, visibility of China projects, and EU-level tactics. Their combined dynamic makes the region a pivotal swing force in EU–China relations.

Poland after Nawrocki: security-first hedging with constrained economic openings

Karol Nawrocki’s narrow victory in Poland’s 2025 presidential election (50.89%) has strengthened the nationalist camp’s hand, granting it substantial agenda-setting and veto power over the coalition government’s foreign policy (Polska Agencja Prasowa, 2025). In practice, this outcome is hardening Warsaw’s security-first orientation, centring Euro-Atlantic deterrence and U.S. reassurance as paramount, whilst increasingly framing China as a strategic risk—a perception sharpened by Beijing’s perceived alignment with Russia (Przychodniak, 2025a).

This results in a form of embedded hedging characterised by tightly constrained economic openings. On security, Nawrocki’s pro-U.S. stance reinforces alignment with Washington and a tendency to link trade to national resilience. Economically, engagement with China remains deliberately selective and low-visibility, focused on supply-chain niches, firm-level cooperation, and sub-national projects that minimise political symbolism (Jerzewski, 2025). Polish diplomacy now consistently foregrounds the European security environment and the war in Ukraine in talks with Beijing, explicitly situating economic relations within a risk-aware framework (Polish MFA, 2025).

Consequently, at the EU level, Poland is inclined to advocate a more consistent de-risking line—while still seeking targeted transition periods for vulnerable sectors. Official reporting on its Council Presidency highlights advancing ‘competitiveness and security’ in trade policy and concrete progress on investment screening and technology controls, signalling a clear preference for operational tools over rhetorical ambiguity (Riehle, 2025).

Czechia with Babiš: transactional economic pragmatism under EU constraints

 The 2025 Czech parliamentary election returned ANO to first place (34.51%, 80 seats), shifting the country’s foreign economic policy towards a more transactional, results-driven approach under Andrej Babiš (Parliament of the Czech Republic, 2025). This orientation prioritises measurable gains—investments, exports, industrial projects—while treating China less as a values-based issue and more as a selectively useful economic partner, deliberately insulated from overt political symbolism (Ovečková, 2025).

This creates a distinct form of embedded hedging, characterised by constrained economic pragmatism. On security, official strategy still frames China as a ‘systemic challenge,’ stressing vulnerability to coercive interdependence to signal sustained alignment with Washington and NATO (Dębiec, 2025). Economically, however, business and bureaucratic actors are expected to gain influence, favouring narrow, project-based cooperation—such as supply-chain niches or export deals—that can be defended as technocratic rather than geopolitical (DOSTÁL, 2025).

Consequently, EU constraints are managed through procedure rather than direct challenge. A Babiš-led government is likely to seek industry-friendly interpretations, longer adjustment periods, and careful sequencing on sensitive files—softening language and delaying higher-risk measures to protect competitiveness, all while maintaining core security signals (Jochecová, 2025). In essence, Czech hedging remains firm on security but becomes quieter, narrower, and more transactional in its economic dealings with China.

Slovakia under Fico: China-friendly course as leverage politics

Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico’s 2025 trip to China was framed by Bratislava as an effort to unlock underused economic potential and deepen trade and investment cooperation, marking a deliberate elevation of China within the country’s external economic diplomacy (Blanár, 2025).

Politically, this China-friendly course complements—rather than substitutes—Fico’s contentious positioning on Ukraine and EU files. Regional analysts argue Beijing is treated as a form of strategic option value: an external partner that widens Slovakia’s bargaining space with Brussels and showcases ‘sovereign’ policy autonomy domestically (Dlhopolec, 2025). In practice, Slovakia does not exit NATO-aligned security settings but pursues more visible cooperation with China than Poland or Czechia, often packaged through narratives of infrastructure, industrial investment, and mobility facilitation (Majsniarova et al., 2025).

Consequently, Slovakia’s main EU-level influence is procedural. Its leverage is greatest on highly politicised, unanimity-sensitive dossiers, where it can slow, dilute, or resequence outcomes without formally rejecting the collective line (Csanyi, 2025). Official rhetoric stresses dialogue “in all directions” and prioritises economic deliverables, favouring a dual-track approach of adhering to EU rules while advancing selective China-linked projects (Ogrodnik, 2025). This positions Slovakia as a salient conduit for low-cost obstruction and symbolic signalling within EU-China debates.

Hungary: deepening strategic partnership and the limits of embedded autonomy

President Xi’s 2024 Hungary visit spotlighted Budapest’s ‘connectivity’ focus, with Orbán framing ties as central to Hungary’s strategic future and proof of enduring East–West interdependence (Orbán, 2024). Szijjártó’s 2025 follow-up echoed this, positioning Hungary as a crossroads for global capital and reaffirming deepened economic cooperation despite rising polarisation (Szijjártó, 2025).

Hungary stands out as the most expansive V4 practitioner of embedded hedging. Economically, cooperation with Beijing has deepened, notably across EVs and battery supply chains, rail infrastructure, and investment facilitation—all framed as a sovereignty-centred industrial strategy promising jobs and technological upgrading (Buzna et al., 2024). In security terms, Budapest maintains its core NATO commitments while stressing strategic autonomy and rejecting bloc logic, thereby treating China primarily as an economic alternative rather than a systemic risk (Hompot, 2025).

Within the EU, Hungary wields influence through procedural manoeuvre—shaping agendas, disputing wording, and imposing delays—to soften high‑salience China‑related files (Ennadi, 2024). Yet this autonomous posture carries its own constraints: heavy reliance on high‑profile Chinese projects can heighten financing vulnerabilities and provoke political pushback, raising the long‑term costs of an outlier position even when short‑term investment gains are considerable (KISZELLY, 2025).

Cross-case synthesis: V4 as a swing sub-region

While each V4 government balances U.S. security guarantees with selective economic links to China, all must navigate strict EU constraints. Their common response has been to technocratise ties—channelling cooperation into narrower industrial niches, firm-level deals, and subnational projects that are easier to frame as apolitical and compliant with EU rules.

Divergences, however, remain sharp. Poland adopts a securitised stance, emphasising deterrence. Czechia prefers transactional pragmatism, quietly seeking flexibility. Slovakia and Hungary more openly pursue China-friendly projects, leveraging them in intra-EU bargaining. Together, this positions the V4 as a pivotal swing region: not a unified bloc, but actors capable of diluting, delaying, or reshaping EU’s China policy as great-power competition grows.

Implications for EU–China relations under intensifying competition

The V4 cases expose the EU’s internal struggle to maintain coherence: de-risking is less often outright rejected than selectively applied. Post-election Poland, under Nawrocki, champions a security-first agenda and pushes for stricter, faster implementation—even while carving out some transition space for vulnerable industries (Jazowska, 2025; Jerzewski, 2025). Hungary, in contrast, keeps pursuing high-profile ‘connectivity’ projects with China, channelling friction into procedural tactics like carve-outs and deliberate delays (Gizińska & Uznańska, 2024; Szijjártó, 2025). Similarly, Slovakia’s China-friendly economic narrative enables it to dilute or slow EU-level measures when domestic re-industrialisation goals are at stake (Brezáni, 2025). Czechia, meanwhile, often prefers competitiveness-led sequencing, subtly softening sensitive policies without breaking consensus (DOSTÁL, 2025).

For Washington, this complicates alliance management. Hard transactional pressure may compel symbolic alignment, but it also pushes some V4 capitals to hedge economically—using Chinese investment as a buffer against U.S. trade volatility (García-Herrero & Vasselier, 2024; Przychodniak, 2025b). The result is spillover: China policy gets tangled in intra-alliance bargaining.

For Beijing, sub-regional entry remains feasible—cultivating receptive partners can slow EU-wide pacing (Uznańska, 2025). Yet public sentiment in CEE is mixed, raising political risks for governments seen as over-engaging with China (Bērziņa-Čerenkova et al., 2024). Beijing’s corridor of influence is thus narrowing, increasingly tempered by EU scrutiny and domestic volatility.

Conclusion

This paper has argued that the V4’s repositioning under ‘Trump 2.0’ is best understood as embedded hedging: small EU member states seek US-centred security assurance while preserving selective China-linked economic gains, but their choices are channelled through EU legal, regulatory, and procedural constraints. The key mechanism is therefore not dramatic realignment, but institutionally mediated manoeuvre—technocratising and narrowing China-facing engagement, lowering political visibility, and exploiting timing, sequencing, and wording battles to manage risk and preserve discretion.

The central finding is that the V4 is emerging not as a cohesive China bloc, but as a swing sub-region whose internal variation matters: Poland pushes a more securitised line, while Hungary and Slovakia sustain more overt China-friendly projects, and Czechia pursues transactional flexibility. Taken together, these dynamics enable the V4 to dilute EU language, delay implementation, or selectively reshape policy instruments at critical moments. Future research should integrate three key sources: the Council’s voting and statement records, trails of policy text revisions, and FDI/project data. The comparative framework should also be broadened to include other CEECs beyond the V4, such as the Baltic states, as well as states in Southeastern Europe.

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