Via Foreign Policy Research Institute, a report on Georgia’s pivot towards China:

As Georgia pivots away from the West and slides into dictatorship, China emerges as its key strategic partner. While Washington and Brussels struggle to find transatlantic unity and craft a unified approach to Russia and Ukraine, Beijing methodically expands its clout in the South Caucasus. It quietly cements its influence in Georgia while securing a pivotal role in the development of the Middle Corridor. The establishment of a strategic partnership between Georgia and China has expanded China’s role in the country, raising questions about whether Georgia is shifting towards new alliances—with Russia or China—or remaining strategically adrift. At the same time, uncertainty looms on whether the West is standing with Georgian people against authoritarian encroachment or ceding Georgia to Russian and Chinese influence.

Strategic Partnerships

 The elevation of Georgia-China relations to a strategic level has confirmed the depth of their mutual interests. Tbilisi’s strategic alignment with Beijing is partly driven by the internal and external vulnerabilities of the regime of former Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili. A convergence of factors, such as isolation from the West, fear of regime collapse, domestic pressure to realign with the West, and the loss of Western assistance pushed Tbilisi to seek strategic alliances with an alternative political and economic powerhouse. While strengthening ties with China in economic and trade spheres—in the context of the Middle Corridor—wouldn’t be seen as a strategic maneuver but a tactical move for a country invested in joining the Euro-Atlantic institutions, Tbilisi’s commitment to support Beijing’s global initiatives (the Global Security Initiative, Global Civilizational Initiative, Global Developmental Initiative, and the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)), its desire to deepen ties with the Chinese Communist Party, and its willingness to share its experience in governance with its Chinese counterparts reflects a major shift in Georgia’s strategic orientation.

The Chinese global initiatives are tools and means at Beijing’s disposal to challenge the liberal world order and undermine the West’s global leadership. While the BRI lays the groundwork for China’s growing economic dominance in the world and the Global Security Initiative offers an alternative global security paradigm to US-led global security arrangements, the Global Civilizational Initiative and Global Developmental Initiative provide a developmental and ideological alternative framework to facilitate Chinese global ascendency. Consequently, Georgia’s commitment to join China’s global initiatives signals Tbilisi’s willingness to side with Beijing in the strategic competition between democracy and autocracy, tilting itself into the Russo-Chinese authoritarian ecosystem where might makes rights and the rights of individuals are sacrificed for the good of the authoritarian state.

Economy, Investments, and Infrastructure Projects

Since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, the geopolitical importance of Georgia and the South Caucasus has increased substantially. Russia’s political, economic, and financial isolation has diminished its role as a central trade corridor for China, pushing East-West commerce and trade from Russia to alternative routes, namely the Trans-Caspian International Transit Route (the Middle Corridor). Georgia, positioned at the heart of the Middle Corridor, has made it a crucial link between Europe and Asia. With Russian transit declining by 50 percent Georgia’s role in regional trade and connectivity is expanding, with annual shipments projected to reach 10 million tons, attracting the interest of a wide range of global and regional players. As the major stakeholder in the Middle Corridor development, China established a Free Trade Agreement and Visa Free Regime with Georgia to increase its economic presence in the country, making it one of Georgia’s top trade partners. Considering Georgia as a key player in developing the Middle Corridor, China has invested in its infrastructure, energy, logistics, and free industrial zones, including seaports, highways, and railways, gaining unrestricted access to the Black Sea. With its efforts to lock Georgia into the BRI, China aims to link Central Asia with the South Caucasus through the Middle Corridor and gain direct access to the EU market while monopolizing, reshaping, and boosting regional connectivity.

Notably, most major Chinese companies—the China Road and Bridge Corporation, China State Construction Engineering Corporation, China Communication Construction Co., and China Harbor Engineering Company—involved in projects of strategic significance in Georgia have dark backgrounds and questionable reputations worldwide. These firms have often been embroiled in numerous scandals in various countries in Europe, Africa, and Asia, as well as in Canada and Australia. Hence, they have been sanctioned, disbarred, and blacklisted by host countries and international organizations for their bribery, illicit practices, and fraudulent activities. Despite these facts, Georgia’s current government saw no hindrance in entering into pacts with the abovementioned Chinese enterprises. For instance, the China Harbor Engineering Company, a subsidiary of the China Communication Construction Co., which had been blacklisted by the US Department of Commerce and sanctioned by Bangladesh in 2018 for its illicit activities, won a lucrative contract along with the Chinese-Singaporean Consortium for developing Georgia’s most significant strategic asset: Anaklia’s deep-sea port on its the Black Sea Coast. The contract leaves Georgia increasingly dependent and vulnerable to the China Harbor Engineering Company’s corrupt and untransparent decision-making.

In parallel, China has been active in taking advantage of Georgia’s financial vulnerabilities, aiming to expand its financial footprint into the country. A combination of factors such as Tbilisi’s increasing alienation from the West, growing isolation from international financial institutions (including the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank), and the sanctions policies imposed on Georgia’s ruling elite restricts the regime’s access to international financial markets, reduces the government’s creditworthiness, and cuts direct foreign investments, making it much harder for Tbilisi to attract a sizable capital. In its efforts to compensate for lost investments and Western financial backing, the ruling party has taken concrete steps to find alternative avenues for non-Western funding, creating an attractive opportunity for Chinese financial institutions to move in and branch out in Georgia. For example, on September 25, 2024, the acting President of the National Bank of Georgia, Natia Turnava, met with Chinese Ambassador Zhou Qian to discuss the potential entry of the Chinese state-owned banks into the Georgian market, focusing mainly on “enhancing cooperation in payment systems and financial services.” While China’s entry into Georgia’s banking sector ensures the regime’s survival for the time being, it will increase Georgia’s reliance on China’s financial might, which could quickly become a silent lever of influence, shaping policy decisions in ways that are not immediately apparent but carry long-term strategic consequences.

Chinese investments in infrastructure, the energy sector, real estate, and financial institutions often come with hidden strings attached. Debt dependency, opaque business arrangements, and the political influence that go along with them have been long-standing tactics in Beijing’s toolkit to capture strategic assets of investment-recipient countries. For instance, many African and Asian countries have been subject to China’s “debt-trap” diplomacy, where the host countries were forced to relinquish some of their strategic assets to decrease their debt burden to China. Georgia is no exception. Thus, with its investments in the Poti Industrial Zone, hydropower plants, the deep-sea port in Anaklia, presumably the Vaziani Military Base, and the financial sector, China has laid the foundation for its possible asset takeover. 

Technology

Beyond economy, infrastructure, and trade, China’s technological influence in Georgia is expanding at a rapid pace. In 2023, then Premier Irak’li Garibashvili’s statements at Chinese Tech Giant Huawei’s HQ signaled that Tbilisi would completely reverse its digital strategy and Information and Communications Technology security policy. It pointed to Tbilisi getting Chinese companies to play a key role in the country’s digital transformation, considering building hubs for digital, logistics, transportation, and clean energy as well as talent cultivation. By working with Huawei and other Chinese Techno Companies such as Hikvision, Dahua, and Tiandy, Tbilisi dishonored the memorandum of understanding it signed with the United States in 2021 promising to curtail the expansion of Chinese technology firms into the country. 

According to Civic Idea (a leading Georgian think tank), the procurement trend of Chinse manufactured technologies in Georgia has grown dramatically in recent years, equipping a broad spectrum of public institutions, including ministries and their agencies, self-government bodies, local municipalities, city halls, customs control structures, educational institutions, healthcare organizations, and other state and non-state entities. For instance, on October 18, 2024, China provided X-ray inspection systems to Georgian customs authorities under the pretense of modernizing economic borders and ensuring safe conduct of international shipments. By installing Chinese-made customs control systems at Georgia’s border checkpoints, including Sadakhlo, Kartsakhi, Kazbegi, Red Bridge, Ninotsminda, and Sarpi, Tbilisi embedded Chinese eyes and ears in the country’s customs control system, raising risks for Georgia’s trade infrastructure and national security.

The deployment of Chinese customs control technology into Georgia’s customs control infrastructure increases the country’s reliance on Chinese-made equipment. Furthermore, the system’s ability to collect, store, and transmit sensitive trade-crossing data allows it to be used for surveillance and intelligence gathering. The data extracted from this technology could always end up in the hands of Georgia’s unfriendly countries. For instance, in 2023, Radio Free Europe/ Radio Liberty revealed that data from thousands of Chinese surveillance cameras installed in Ukraine could be transmitted into servers linked to the Russian Security Services.

Internal Security Management

China’s internal security technology transfer to Georgia is another significant pillar of the partnership between the two. In past years, Beijing has been actively supplying its internal security management technology equipment to like-minded regimes around the world under the guise of public safety improvements to ensure control over their populations. Internationally-sanctioned Chinese technology firms such as Huawei, Hikvision, and Dahua have supplied AI-driven crowd control systems, predictive policing algorithms, and digital surveillance systems to Hong Kong, Iran, Serbia, Venezuela, and many African countries to suppress dissent, monitor political opposition, and control mass protests. The recent massive protests in Georgia and the government’s brutal actions in response, including imposing hefty fines on protesters for blocking a street, revealed that the current Georgian regime successfully adopted some of the elements of the Chinese-manufactured mass demonstration management tools and means: identifying, assaulting, oppressing, and arresting students, activists, journalists, and political opponents.

Exporting Chinese techno authoritarianism is part of China’s BRI and Digital Silk Road strategy. It aims to expand China’s global influence, secure its investments in recipient countries, and ensure receiving states’ dependence on Chinese Technology. With Georgia experiencing massive protests and public demonstrations, the transfer rate of mass management technology to Georgia will grow sizably, integrating the regime even deeper into the Chinese technological ecosystem. Namely, the recent meeting between the Qian and Minister of Internal Affairs of Georgia Vakhtang Gomelauri underlined, once again, the existence of a good working relationship between communist China and Georgia’s current regime, signaling their willingness to intensify cooperation in the field of law enforcement even further. 

Soft Power/Propaganda

China has also expanded its presence in Georgia’s media ecosystem and its cultural and educational sectors. In its efforts to reshape public opinion in this increasingly pro-Western society, China used state-backed public and private media channels, social media networks, diplomatic channels, business enterprises, and organizations linked to Chinese interests to back up its actions and shape public perception in its favor. Through these mediums China attempts to dispel fears over debt-trap diplomacy, murky financial arrangements, dubious technology transfers, and the risks associated with its BRI projects, presenting itself as a reliable partner, great economic success story, and credible alternative to the West in Georgia.

Despite limited coverage of Sino-Georgian academic relations in traditional Georgian media, it is noticeable that China’s engagement with Georgian educational and cultural institutions has increased meaningfully, employing a wide range of means to popularize and promote Chinese language, culture, history, and global geopolitical perspective. With Chinese backing, Georgia has established the Georgian-Chinese Center for Economic and Cultural Development and the Georgian-Chinese Friendship Association to promote educational and cultural partnerships while facilitating China’s collaboration with local educational and cultural institutions. In addition to establishing Confucius Institutes—widely seen as a tool of the Chinese propaganda machine—to teach Mandarin at various higher educational institutions, China offers Chinese language lessons to Georgian students at the secondary school level. Moreover, China provides scholarships to Georgian students to study in China while increasing the number of Chinese teachers yearly to spread the Chinese language throughout the country, cultivating long-term people-to-people partnerships. As Western scholarships, funding, and educational opportunities decrease for Georgian students, China fills the gap by increasing its educational funds, laying the groundwork for long-term societal and political collaboration.

Regional Dynamics

While China’s influence is growing, Russia remains Georgia’s most direct security threat. Russia occupies 20 percent of Georgia’s sovereign territory, supporting Russian-backed regimes in Georgian enclaves—Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Over the last few years, the Russo-Chinese entente has managed to undercut Georgia’s Euro-Atlantic aspirations and reshaped its strategic orientation. Russia employed military means, economic pressure, disinformation, and hybrid tactics to change the strategic thinking in Tbilisi. China, relying on the strategic and security environment created by the Kremlin, provided a developmental alternative to ensure Georgia’s deviation from its Western path. Hence, the Sino-Russian division of labor allowed both sides to forge a common front against US and EU interests in the country while avoiding competition and clashes. The Russo-Chinese cooperative engagement in the region intends to ensure that Georgia remains part of a multipolar world order aligned with the BRICS power duo, creating conditions for Georgia and other regional players to link with anti-Western regional and global integrational initiatives.

As Georgia distanced itself from NATO and the European Union, it became a fertile ground, easy target, and attractive prey to authoritarian states and anti-Western integration initiatives engaged in challenging the West in the region. Russian, Chinese, and Iranian-backed groupings, such as the 3+3 initiative and BRICS, have been making inroads into the South Caucasus, organizing structural networks, supporting the regimes of their liking, and increasing their regional clout while undermining and uprooting the values, principles, and institutional frameworks the West has hinged on for decades to boost regional development.

While still evolving, the 3+3 regional platform under the leadership of Russia, Iran, and Turkey intends to exclude the European Union and United States from brokering a peace deal between Azerbaijan and Armenia, dictating the terms of the restructuring of the regional security order. The 3+3 initiative has attempted to influence and shape regional trade, economy, transportation, logistics, and connectivity. Although not an official member of the 3+3 platform, China is instrumental in its development, as other member states lack the resources and capability to implement major regional projects without China’s financial assistance. Due to its strategic location, Georgia remains the crucial missing piece in completing the 3+3 platform’s intended membership. In recent years, Georgia’s internal and external challenges have influenced its decision not to join the 3+3 initiative. Georgia’s absence limited the platform’s potential and challenged its scope, making it a less effective and able institutional framework to deliver on its promises. Nevertheless, with Georgia transitioning into a dictatorship, recalibrating its relationship with Russia, and forming a strategic partnership with China, its alignment with the 3+3 initiative will be revitalized.

The growing Sino-Georgian partnership and China’s intention to incorporate BRICS into the BRI could pave the way for Georgia’s alignment with another anti-Western grouping such as BRICS. American sanctions on countries of its dislike reinvigorated the process of de-dollarization in China, Russia, Iran, and other autocracies, laying the groundwork for BRICS expansion and its organizational restructuring. With the establishment of the New Development Bank as an alternative to the IMF and the World Bank, along with efforts to create a financial system independent of the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications, Beijing is heading attempts to challenge Western-led financial dominance. This creates a condition for anti-Western regimes, like the one in Tbilisi, to access alternative financing necessary for regime survival, bypassing Western financial institutions including, but not limited to, the IMF and the World Bank. Because Baku has already applied for BRICS membership and Yerevan is cozying up with the platform, the prospect of Tbilisi linking with BRICS is within sight.

Conclusion and Geopolitical Ramifications

Beijing’s growing engagement in Georgia and the broader South Caucasus carries profound long-term implications for the region and the West. While China’s direct financial investments in Georgia are relatively modest compared to other regions, its focus on strategic sectors and critical infrastructure—particularly through the Middle Corridor—binds Georgia more closely to China’s digital and geopolitical ecosystem. 

The current Georgian government’s increasing reliance on Chinese technology poses significant risks to Georgia’s sovereignty and security. As Chinese tech companies are closely tied to the Chinese state, their increasing role in Georgia’s physical and digital infrastructure espouses the country to surveillance, disinformation, social manipulation, cyber disruptions, and potential coercion. Thus, Georgia entrusting its security and digital infrastructure to Chinese tech firms will allow China to gain deep access to government institutions, defense establishments, data centers, and private enterprises. Beijing will be able to monitor political actors, collect sensitive data, and influence domestic affairs. It would also give the People’s Liberation Army leverage to disrupt Georgia’s communications networks, cyber defenses, and military systems if needed.

The economic and trade surge in the Middle Corridor underscores Georgia’s rising significance for transcontinental commercial trade as it provides the only viable alternative to Russian routes for Central Asian and Azerbaijani trade with the European Union and the United States, including vital commodities such as oil, gas, and rare earth minerals. A partnership with the Chinese-backed regime in Tbilisi would be a significant setback for US and European allies. They will face significant challenges in maintaining efficient trade links to the South Caucasus, Central Asia, and Western China, leading to increased costs, delays, and potential trade disruptions. Thus, losing Georgia to the Russo-Chinese entente would endanger direct land access to Central Asia and leave the West with limited options, increasing their reliance on trade routes susceptible to political instability or control by adversarial powers. 

The strategic and institutional alignment of autocracies, backed by China’s technological and financial influence, is reshaping the South Caucasus into a critical geopolitical hub. This shift establishes alternative institutional frameworks (the 3+3 and possibly BRICS) that challenge Western-led regional development models while simultaneously creating a fault line in the Black Sea Region, where competing ideologies, geopolitical forces, and infrastructure projects will vie for dominance. Despite being the dominant security provider in the region, the Kremlin faces increasing dependence on Beijing’s geopolitical, economic, and financial power, limiting Russia’s strategic significance and eroding its relevance in the South Caucasus. As global ecosystems become a battleground between China and the West, Georgia’s and, ultimately, the South Caucasus’s alignment with Chinese-built critical infrastructure and integrational initiatives will entrench it in Beijing’s sphere of influence, making it difficult to reverse the course.

Georgia stands at a crossroads, with most of its people committed to Euro-Atlantic integration while pushing back against Russian and Chinese influence. To shift the status quo, the West must actively support Georgia’s democratic movement. Strengthening pro-democracy forces is vital to countering authoritarianism and securing Georgia’s role as a key bridge between the Middle Corridor, Europe, and the United States.