Small states, big stage: Latvia’s non-establishment actors and China’s evolving strategy

Abstract

Over the past decade, Baltic-China relations have undergone a dramatic reversal. Initially enthusiastic participants in China’s ‘16 + 1’ platform, Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia engaged with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in hopes of economic gains, tourism, and geopolitical balance. However, by the late 2010s, shifting international dynamics, growing awareness of China’s geopolitical agenda, and Beijing’s failure to condemn Russia’s aggression against Ukraine triggered Latvian government’s disengagement. In response to its exclusion from mainstream political channels, PRC state-affiliated actors are now more open to engagement with the opposition parties, non-establishment and non-political actors. This has found a receptive channel: local non-establishment actors are seeking to leverage China’s presence and interests to create political opportunities and increase bargaining power for themselves. Focusing on Latvia, a regional outlier in public sentiment toward China, and based on qualitative methods drawn from international relations research and investigative journalism, including interviews and open-source analysis, this paper provides empirical evidence how local agency shapes foreign influence efforts. It argues EU-level implications via the application of Liberal Intergovernmentalism, revealing broader patterns of small states’ non-mainstream political actor agency and opportunity seeking.