It is with immense pleasure that I can see my report titled “More than meets the eye: Behind the façade of Sino-Cypriot relations” published on the website of European Interest. It is a media outlet I regularly keep an eye on, in order to stay in the loop about important developments and benefit from insightful analyses.
As soon as I embarked on this fascinating research project, I came across some surprising findings. From the very start, I was taken aback when I realised how astonishingly under-researched this topic was, so I had to collect a large amount of data from scratch.
Another finding relates to the general attitude towards the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Given the long-standing Cyprus question, it’s perfectly understandable that Nicosia needs to be on good terms with P5, the permanent members of the UN Security Council, including China. But this does not explain why Cypriot officials and media alike tend to cosy up to Beijing so much. For instance, it’s hard to understand the decision of former president Nikos Anastasiades in 2015 to skip an EU summit in Brussels and head to Beijing to attend an obscure conference of Asian political parties instead.
In fact, I have found out that Cypriots have a sense of awe of China. Well, I thought, this is only to be expected. After all, the Republic of Cyprus has fewer than a million citizens, as compared to a 1.4 billion-strong China which also happens to be the second most populous nation in the world, the second largest economy, a technological powerhouse and a heavyweight in international relations. Hence all the feelgood stories in Cypriot media about the economic heft and spectacular achievements of the Asian giant over the past forty-odd years.
However, as I was looking at Chinese investment projects in Cyprus, a bizarre odour started oozing out. It was quite surprising to find out that some 90% of Chinese FDI was actually concentrated in one single sector of the Cypriot economy – real estate. While there’s zero Chinese investment in local manufacturing units or the agriculture of the island, it’s exclusively about real estate. Luxury hotels, a huge casino in Limassol and property purchased by PRC nationals, often in return for Cypriot – and thus European – citizenship.
The Golden Passport scheme, as this government programme is widely known, is a particularly murky story about the “naturalisation” of thousands of obscenely rich foreigners, many of whom are “wanted” back in their countries of origin. The programme was suspended in 2020, amidst strongly worded objections of EU institutions and an outcry in international media.
It’s mostly Russian oligarchs who have benefited from the Golden Passport programme, followed by Chinese nationals, including bigwigs in the Chinese Communist Party. Interestingly, some PRC citizens who hold Cypriot passports have been detained abroad for criminal activities, and there are disconcerting media reports about Chinese “Cypriots” involved in propaganda campaigns in other European countries.
And then there’s the Vasilikos saga. In many ways, the debacle with the construction of a liquefied natural gas terminal by a PRC state-owned enterprise is an eye-opener about the “Chinese way of doing business”, which appears to be much more suitable for Africa and other parts of the Global South than for an EU member state like the Republic of Cyprus. Such a disappointing story clearly debunks the myth of Chinese efficiency and reliability.
This has not prevented the PRC from projecting its soft power in Cyprus, through a well-funded public diplomacy campaign in the domains of culture and education. There’s a long list of cooperation agreements between universities in the two countries, and a rapidly growing community of Chinese students in the Republic of Cyprus. As I was plodding on through this exercise and an increasingly complex picture started emerging, I had one recurring thought.
Could it be that all the handshakes and smiles in photo ops, lofty speeches by state officials from both sides, uplifting media stories about the strong bond of friendship and ostentatious outpouring of mutual admiration was just a meticulously choreographed show? A shiny façade covering up much more mundane pursuits and even unsavoury stuff on some occasions? Ultimately, if one wants to understand the true nature of relations between the PRC and the Republic of Cyprus, one should definitely look behind that façade.
Plamen Tonchev
Mr Plamen Tonchev is Head of Asia Unit at the Institute of International Economic Relations (IIER), Greece, and a founding member of the European Think-tank Network on China (ETNC).
