By Dragan Vukićević, President of the National Committee of IAESTE
“I am certain that today we have taken a historic, pioneering step into the future. Today, Serbia has stepped forward into the future. Today, Serbia has shown that it can move forward at a speed that many other countries in Europe, including incomparably more developed ones, cannot match.” Thus, with his trademark melodramatic self-assurance, the President of Serbia opened a new humanoid robot factory in Šabac. But let us take a slightly closer look at that!
It is not the first time that a disastrous economic and geopolitical reality is served up to us as an expensive television spectacle. We watched the political leadership gaze with childlike enthusiasm at humanoid robots dancing Serbian folk dances, while their Chinese hosts skilfully flattered them with tales of a “technological partnership of the century”. From Belgrade TV studios, the news was triumphantly announced: an additional €940 million of Chinese investment in artificial intelligence, auto parts, and humanoid robotics has been contracted, and the newly opened plant in Šabac was pompously declared “the first major base for the production of humanoid robots in Europe”.
However, when the television studio lights are switched off and the aggressive political marketing is laid bare, we are not left with any “22nd century”. The factory opened in Šabac is no visionary leap into the future, nor does it deliver any real transfer of knowledge. It represents the latest phase of a deeply asymmetrical process in which Serbia voluntarily consents to the role of a technological colony, a cheap assembly plant, and a humble “screwdriver operator” on the periphery of Europe.
Scientific past as a bitter reminder: Where we were, and where we have agreed to fall
As someone who has been at the head of international student exchange in technical and natural sciences for decades, having overseen and mentored 53 generations of young engineers, master’s students, and doctoral candidates, I have a professional and moral duty to remind everyone where true scientific value lies.
The bitter paradox of this situation is historically unbearable. The state leadership presents the opening of plants by companies such as the Minth Group and AgiBot as some sort of “brain import”. In reality, today we are importing finished Chinese machines whose basic mathematical models of stability and motion – the famous ZMP theory and pioneering work on exoskeletons and anthropomorphic robots – were defined right here in Belgrade, more than half a century ago.
At that time, we did not consider ourselves a regional assembly hub, nor did we wait for others to dictate our technological development: we were global pioneers whose scientific solutions transformed global industry. Instead of building on that continuity, investing in our own scientific bases, and supporting domestic engineering teams who know how to create an original product, today we enthusiastically accept the role of a hired labour force that merely assembles components in Šabac that were designed thousands of miles away.
Chinese strategic “Wu Wei” and the Cyprus Scenario, Serbian-style
To understand the long-term, cold-blooded strategy with which China approaches the Balkans, we must look into their deep philosophical and geopolitical matrix.
In Chinese strategic culture, time has a completely different dimension than in the West. Long waits are not a problem; they are an integral part of the process. While Western and Balkan politicians think within the limits of a single four-year electoral mandate, Beijing projects its interests decades in advance. If they encounter an obstacle, they do not retreat; they wisely step aside, await a favourable historical moment, and seek out the weakest point in the opponent’s defence. That is the essence of the principle of wu wei (action through inaction) and the lesson of the ancient strategist Sun Tzu. Let us recall what that strategy looks like when it collides with systems that still retain some semblance of awareness regarding their own sovereignty and legal order.
In August 2012, amidst the severe Eurozone financial crisis, the Chinese company Far Eastern Phoenix offered a spectacular €600 million to lease and transform the old airport in Larnaca, Cyprus. They planned to build a gigantic exhibition centre for Chinese products – a trade and logistics hub for duty-free entry into the European market. The idea was to create a massive commercial and technological platform from which Chinese goods could flood the Mediterranean and the EU hinterland without added European customs duties.
However, where regulatory control and institutional barriers exist, resistance exists as well. The special adviser to the Cypriot president on international relations was forced to resign over allegations of conflict of interest and non-transparent lobbying on behalf of Chinese investors. Under strong pressure from the Cypriot public, the opposition, and direct warnings from Brussels regarding the violation of EU competition and public procurement rules, the government in Nicosia officially declared the project dead in early 2013.
The Cyprus scenario failed, but China did not abandon its intention to create its own “southern gateway” to Europe. It simply changed venue and found an incomparably more permeable terrain. Everything that they had patiently planned through Cyprus for years – which they could not achieve there due to European laws and institutions – they are now fully realising in Serbia.
Serbia has proven to be the perfect geopolitical testing ground due to its specific governance structure and highly personalised style of rule. Here, there are no uncomfortable questions, no independent regulatory bodies, no transparent tenders, and no rigorous environmental impact assessments. Decisions are made within a tight circle of people, and contracts are signed behind closed doors, far from the public eye.
That is why Beijing directly recognised an opportunity in Belgrade and consciously, lavishly assisted Serbia in winning the hosting rights for the EXPO 2027 world exhibition. The Chinese diplomatic network lobbied for Belgrade’s candidacy, while the Chinese state-owned enterprise PowerChina was engaged as the main contractor for the construction of that colossal complex – all financed by Chinese state banks through highly lucrative loans. The total value of connected infrastructure projects for EXPO is estimated at an astronomical €12 billion to €18 billion.
Why did Beijing invest so much effort to ensure Serbia secured EXPO 2027? Because EXPO 2027 is the perfect marketing platform and Trojan horse for the Chinese economy: a stage from which China, under the guise of Serbian hospitality and at the expense of Serbian taxpayers, will directly demonstrate its technological dominance and “soft power” to the whole of Europe. The Chinese pavilion, under the slogan “Boundless Rhythm, Joyful Future”, will be the centerpiece of the event. In this way, China gains a legal, state-funded platform to market its products, promote its technologies, and permanently cement its status as the indispensable economic and political master of the Balkans.
Anatomy of the Šabac factory
Let us strip away the rose-tinted glasses from the eyes of the domestic public regarding the newly opened plant in Šabac.
The new humanoid robot factory is by no means an R&D (Research and Development) centre. It is not a place where Serbian engineers are developing proprietary artificial intelligence algorithms, designing advanced mechanics, or creating new technological value. It is a basic, conventional assembly plant.
Chinese companies bring finished components into Serbia that were designed and manufactured in China:
- Pre-fabricated printed circuit boards and microchips.
- Pre-programmed servo motors and hydraulic controllers.
- Sensor systems and software licences under the absolute control of Beijing.
Our workforce in Šabac merely joins these parts together, screws them in, and packs them into boxes. The employment of 1,650 workers mostly refers to manual assembly-line operators and technicians with secondary vocational education. The announced sending of “500 young people from Serbia to China for training every year” represents a textbook model of technical conditioning: those young people are not going there to learn how to develop or design a robot from scratch, but rather how to operate it according to the strict instructions of Chinese engineers who firmly hold the keys to the entire system.
The Chinese urgently need the Made in Serbia label on these machines for three stark strategic reasons:
- Bypassing customs and trade barriers: Through Serbia and our Stabilisation and Association Agreement (SAA) with the EU, Chinese products assembled in Šabac bypass customs quotas, protectionist measures, and trade wars raging between Brussels and Beijing much more easily.
- A geopolitical smokescreen: For European buyers and corporations, it is incomparably more acceptable to purchase advanced technology that formally comes from a European country and EU candidate status nation than directly from state laboratories in Shenzhen.
- Cheap resource exploitation: They gain access to the European market at labour costs significantly lower than those in Hungary or Poland, while regulatory control over workers’ rights and environmental protection remains purely pro forma.
Forgetting our own brains
The ceremony in Šabac and the new reality following the political leadership’s stay in China place us before a stark and cruel choice.
The current government has demonstrated a willingness to adopt a subservient attitude and transform Serbia into a technological colony, agreeing to arrangements that bring no real transfer of knowledge or development for the domestic economy. Everything is done with a single goal: to buy time through media spectacles, secure political marketing, and remain in power at all costs – now especially when firm contractual promises have been given to Chinese partners.
If we continue to applaud humanoid robots dancing to the beat of Beijing’s marketing, we consciously consent to becoming a society with a screwdriver in hand. We have condemned the future of generations of young engineers and scientists to assembling other people’s components while our own potential withers away. It is time to stop admiring other people’s toys and to recognise the difference between genuine scientific development and a cheap assembly shop built on foreign interests.
(Danas, 01.09.2026)
https://www.danas.rs/dijalog/licni-stavovi/srbiji-je-ostao-samo-srafciger/