From Classrooms to Newsrooms: The Conduits of Chinese FIMI in the Western Balkans

The full version of this article was originally published in ESTIMA Insights and is republished here with the permission of the author.

When foreign information manipulation and interference (FIMI) is discussed in the Western Balkans, Russia is often the primary reference point. Russian influence operations have attracted considerable attention because of their use of polarizing narratives, conspiracy theories, disinformation, and attempts to exploit existing political and social divisions. China presents a different, although increasingly relevant, model.

China’s information influence in the Western Balkans is generally less dependent on overt disruption. Instead, it is embedded in longer-term relationships: university partnerships, classrooms, scholarships, media cooperation, cultural programs, professional exchanges, diplomatic outreach, and increasingly social media. These activities are not inherently forms of FIMI. Most represent legitimate international cooperation. The analytical question is rather how these relationships can become conduits through which Chinese state narratives, preferred interpretations of international events, or particular representations of China reach local audiences.

From Disruption to Relationship-Building

China’s approach to information influence in the Western Balkans is best understood as layered. Diplomatic communication, economic engagement, cultural diplomacy, education, and media outreach can reinforce one another. The result is not necessarily a single coordinated information campaign, but an ecosystem of relationships that creates multiple points of access to local audiences.

This pattern is visible across the region, although its intensity varies considerably. Serbia has developed the most extensive network of political, economic, educational, and media relations with China. Montenegro has built significant educational and cultural links, while Bosnia and Herzegovina has developed a growing network of university partnerships. Albania has established institutionalized educational cooperation, while North Macedonia combines academic, cultural, and media engagement with state-level scientific cooperation. Kosovo represents a distinct case because China’s non-recognition of Kosovo limits formal diplomatic and institutional channels.

The important point is not that these countries experience identical forms of Chinese influence. Rather, China’s regional engagement relies on a relatively consistent repertoire of instruments, while local political, institutional, and societal conditions determine how those instruments are taken up.

Confucius Institutes: A More Welcoming Environment in the Western Balkans

One of the clearest illustrations of the different environment in which China operates across Europe is the trajectory of Confucius Institutes. While they have closed or come under increasing scrutiny in parts of Western Europe amid concerns about academic freedom, transparency, and the political role of the programs, China has encountered a considerably more receptive environment in the Western Balkans. Here, Confucius Institutes remain an established and visible component of educational and cultural cooperation, with institutes operating in most of the region apart from Kosovo – the notable exception.

Where a Confucius Institute becomes one of the principal avenues through which young people encounter China, it can shape which aspects of Chinese society, culture, and politics are made visible and how China is introduced to future professionals and opinion makers. This exposure can also extend beyond the classroom: students and young people who have the opportunity to visit China through study programs, scholarships, or exchanges have, in some cases, been found to develop more favorable perceptions of China, suggesting that direct exposure and people-to-people exchanges can contribute to shaping longer-term attitudes toward the country.

This is particularly relevant in the Western Balkans, where opportunities to engage with China independently of Chinese-supported programs remain comparatively limited. The result can be an asymmetry of exposure: audiences may encounter China frequently through cultural diplomacy, scholarships, and exchange opportunities while having fewer opportunities to engage with competing interpretations of Chinese politics and China’s role in the international system.

From Institutions to Trusted Networks

Academic cooperation provides another, less visible conduit through which China has expanded its engagement with the Western Balkans. Over the past two decades, Chinese and Western Balkan universities and research institutions have developed a growing number of institutional partnerships, exchange programs, and joint research activities. These forms of cooperation can provide valuable opportunities for researchers and students, including access to expertise, mobility, and international research networks. At the same time, they create channels through which institutional practices, priorities, and relationships are established.

Universities, researchers, and professional associations possess credibility that official diplomatic communication does not. Partnerships can therefore provide external actors with access to communities that may otherwise be difficult to reach.

The relevant question from a research-security perspective is not whether cooperation with Chinese institutions is inherently problematic, but what happens within and around that cooperation: who initiates partnerships, what institutional platforms are created, what information is circulated, whether certain subjects become more visible than others, and whether local actors have access to alternative perspectives. This also requires assessing whether universities and research institutions have sufficient mechanisms to identify and manage potential risks related to research integrity, intellectual property, data, sensitive technologies, funding dependencies, and undue influence.

Universities across the region face chronic funding constraints, pressure to internationalize, and strong incentives to establish external partnerships. Chinese institutions, meanwhile, have their own incentives to internationalize and develop international networks. Cooperation can emerge from perfectly legitimate and mutually beneficial interests while simultaneously creating channels that have broader informational implications.

The potential FIMI dimension lies in the way these relationships operate: influence can be embedded in relationships without being the primary stated purpose of the relationship.

From Classrooms to Newsrooms

Media represents a more direct bridge between Chinese engagement and the wider information environment. Chinese state media and diplomatic missions have developed relationships with media organizations across the Western Balkans through content-sharing, journalist exchanges, interviews, lectures, and other forms of cooperation. Xinhua, for example, has established relationships with media organizations across several Western Balkan countries, while Chinese diplomatic missions regularly provide statements, interviews, and commentary to local media. The importance of these relationships is not necessarily that Chinese-produced content is false. FIMI can also operate through selection, framing, and amplification.

Chinese state and diplomatic communication tends to emphasize themes such as economic development, sovereignty, non-interference, infrastructure, and China’s role as a partner for development. At the same time, contested issues involving Taiwan, Hong Kong, Xinjiang, or China’s relations with the US and other Western powers are presented through Beijing’s preferred framing.

Once such content enters local media ecosystems, it can be reproduced, translated, repackaged, or amplified by domestic and regional actors. This creates an important distinction between content production and content amplification. China does not need to control every outlet through which a narrative travels.

The Western Balkans are particularly conducive to this form of regional circulation, as they function as an interconnected information space. Shared languages, cross-border media consumption, and strong information links mean that content originating in one country can quickly reach audiences elsewhere. Serbian-language media, in particular, has a significant regional reach, making Serbia an important information hub through which narratives about China can travel beyond its borders. Research on North Macedonia has documented this type of regional expansion, where content originating in Serbian outlets can enter the Macedonian information space as apparently regional rather than foreign messaging.

Civil Society, Professional Networks, and the Multipolarity Narrative

A fourth conduit lies between formal diplomacy and mass media: think tanks, professional associations, chambers of commerce, cultural organizations, and civil society. Engagement with these actors can create additional networks through which ideas about international order, development, and China’s global role enter domestic debates. These relationships may involve conferences, study visits, professional exchanges, research cooperation, cultural activities, or participation in international forums.

Again, participation does not imply political alignment. The significance lies in the cumulative effect of repeated interaction. A government official, journalist, researcher, or civil society representative may encounter Chinese perspectives through several different professional settings over time. The resulting influence may therefore be less about persuasion than about familiarity and normalization.

One recurring element of Chinese diplomatic and state-media messaging is the concept of multipolarity: the argument that the international system is moving away from Western dominance toward a more plural distribution of power. This is accompanied by Chinese claims that the relative power and influence of the US and the Western-led international order are declining.

Such narratives can find receptive audiences where domestic actors are already frustrated with the pace of European integration, skeptical of Western foreign policy, or interested in diversifying international partnerships. The vulnerability therefore does not originate solely from Chinese messaging – it also reflects domestic political and socioeconomic conditions that create demand for alternative interpretations of international affairs.

Why Does This Matter Now?

There are at least three reasons to examine China’s information conduits more closely.

First, the Western Balkans are increasingly exposed to a more multipolar international environment. Governments, universities, businesses, and civil society organizations are expanding their external partnerships, while China is seeking a larger role in the region. Understanding its influence requires moving beyond a binary Russia-versus-West framework and examining how Beijing presents its own role in a changing international order.

Second, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Xinjiang illustrate why seemingly distant geopolitical issues can become locally relevant. Chinese diplomatic and media communication consistently presents Taiwan through the One China principle and opposition to what Beijing describes as external interference. Hong Kong and Xinjiang are similarly framed through concepts of sovereignty, territorial integrity, national unity, and resistance to foreign interference.

These positions can reach Western Balkan audiences even when the issues have little direct connection to domestic politics. Their significance therefore lies less in whether audiences adopt Beijing’s positions and more in the repeated exposure to Chinese interpretations of sovereignty, human rights, territorial integrity, and the legitimacy of external involvement.

Third, the region’s institutional capacity to map foreign engagement remains uneven. There is no comprehensive regional mechanism for tracking university agreements, academic mobility, media cooperation, or other forms of China-related engagement. Cooperation is frequently fragmented and driven by individual institutions, researchers, or professional networks. This creates an important information gap. Without adequate transparency, it becomes difficult to distinguish the scale of ordinary cooperation from the accumulation of relationships that may have broader informational effects.

The answer is not to restrict cooperation with China. The Western Balkans benefit from international academic, cultural, economic, and professional exchanges, including with China. Rather, the relevant response is greater transparency and pluralism – knowing who is involved, what partnerships contain, what information is being disseminated, and whether local institutions and audiences have access to diverse perspectives.