Taking in account the progress and successes that the two sides have achieved since the announcement of the Belt and Road Initative (BRI), the paper analyzes the main obstacles for the advancement of the cooperation between China and the CESEE and offers policy suggestions to both the Chinese and the CESEE governments on how to overcome them. It does so by first, reviewing the context in which the cooperation under the BRI has developed, and secondly, by briefly summarizing the state of the art in terms of policy literature available on the topic, and then providing original analysis based on data collected through interviews with high ranking officials and experts, and participant observation in policy forums related to the cooperation. The analytical model developed in the paper combines two sets of criteria of assessing the obstacles to advancing the cooperation. The first set is based on the origin of the problems, meaning whether they are driven by exogenous factors or endogenous factors. The second set of criteria is based on the agency -structure dichotomy. It then provides a theoretical model for the each of types of obstacles (endogenous rooted in structure, endogenous rooted in agents, exogenous rooted in structure, exogenous rooted in agents), followed by concrete examples from the practice of the cooperation. In the final section, the paper provides an analysis of the possible solutions to individual cases of obstacles, but also general guidelines how to develop resilience and advance the cooperation in future.