Where China went wrong in Central and Eastern Europe

China's 17+1 mechanism with Central and Eastern European countries was always perceived as a Trojan horse inside the European Union, but it never became a game changer in Beijing's foreign policy. While the EU has seen it as a threat and overestimated its influence, for China, the 17+1 mechanism has been more of a forum that enables it to skip individual high-level visits to all 17 countries than a tool to gain power over the EU by creating a sphere of influence in Central and Eastern Europe. Created in 2012 as a dialogue mechanism between China and 16 countries, the…