The People’s Republic of China: Political perceptions in Central Europe
Austrian country chapter by Lucas Erlbacher. The publication of this report was undertaken by the Council on Geostrategy, London.
14.06.2023
Constructed around nine country-specific sections, this study explains how parliamentarians and political parties in Central Europe view and scrutinise the PRC and PRC-related activities. It also touches on the public’s perception of the PRC, insofar as this may animate the political decisions taken in democracies. Further, it provides a snapshot of how attitudes towards the CCP may be changing over time in the nine Central European countries.
Austria
Austria’s stance on the PRC is currently set in the tacit cross-party consensus on the necessity to preserve stable and amicable relations with Beijing. This is reinforced by the limited scope of political debate and parliamentary scrutiny regarding the PRC and related issues. However, greater debate in the future is to be expected; at the end of 2020 the Federal Government initiated the process of developing a national ‘China Strategy’.