China comes to Central Europe

In the process of untangling the many storylines concerning Poland's involvement in the Belt and Road Initiative, every person I spoke with offered the same piece of advice: "You have to visit Warsaw's 'Chinatown'."

I soon discovered this was a misnomer. Poland's Chinese Trade Center is located in Wolka Kosowska, about 25 kilometers outside the capital, and it is anything but a tourist hot spot.

Far from my temporary base among the pedestrianized streets and beautiful redbrick buildings of central Warsaw's reconstructed Old Town, I approached a huge industrial estate, busy with trucks offloading goods at giant warehouses.