I The amount of China's strategic partnership in Central and Eastern Europe has increased substantially and the cooperation level has been upgraded

Before the establishment of the“16+1 Cooperation” framework, China only established strategic partnership with Serbia and Poland. In the last five years, under the promotion of the“16+1 Cooperation” framework, the network of China's strategic partnership is more and more serried in Central and Eastern Europe. China established strategic partnership with Czech (2016), upgraded strategic cooperation level with Poland and Serbia from strategic partnership to comprehensive strategic partnership (2016) and ungraded the friendly cooperative partnership with Hungary to comprehensive strategic partnership (2017). In sum, China now has established four strategic partnerships among 16 countries in Central and Eastern Europe.

At the same time, bilateral relations with countries in Central and Eastern Europe are obviously enhanced.

Firstly, the cooperation with V4 countries (The Visegrad Four countries) maintains good momentum. In the area of economic and trade cooperation with 16 CEECs, the V4 countries account for 70%, and they are the important part of economic and trade cooperation under the“16+1 Cooperation” framework. At present, China's cooperation with V4 countries still maintains relatively high level. In 2016, Poland got the greatest amount of economic and trade with China, and Czech and Hungary got the second and third rank.

Secondly, the cooperation with countries in the Balkan region is boosted. With Chinese investments and big projects continuing to land in this region, bilateral cooperation is deepened. In 2016, Romania became the biggest investment destination among 16 CEECs from China which reached 0.39 billion USD . China invested about 800 million dollars of concessional loan into Montenegro North-South Highway construction project. It is not only one of the biggest projects introduced by Montenegro which improves the local popularity of China's equipment manufacturing, but also leaves good image of Chinese people in Montenegro which promotes the stable and good development of bilateral relations. Power generating projects, highway projects and other projects invested by China in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Macedonia and other Western Balkan countries offer enormous convenience for the daily life of local people, and also win good public praise for China in these countries.

Thirdly, the cooperation with the Baltic Sea Region has been advanced. In the perspective of geographic position and historical development, Baltic States are closely connected with Northern Europe, Western Europe and Russia. Since the establishment of“16+1 Cooperation” framework, the cooperation with Baltic States has been deepened which stimulates Baltic States to seek for more development opportunities from China, especially for playing an important pivot role in the Belt and Road Initiative. Estonia has strong willingness in cooperating with China in the field of e-commerce, Latvia in logistics and infrastructure while Lithuania has strong desires in cooperating with China in the fields of port and industry capacity. They look forward to playing a hinge role in connectivity between Europe and Asia.