The first half of April 2023 could be described as “European fortnight” in Beijing. First, there was a high-profile visit by French President Emmanuel Macron to China in the first week of April accompanied by Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, followed by a visit of German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock last Friday.
These European visits to the Chinese capital were preceded by remarks delivered by Von der Leyen on the future of European-Chinese relations that to a large extent were a repeat of US positions vis-à-vis China.
In order to soften her hawkish message, the European Commission President said that the European Union does not want to “decouple” from China but would adopt policies in managing its relationship with China that would lessen “risks” in economic, commercial, and technological cooperation between the Europeans and the Chinese. She called this policy “derisking.”
It then came as no coincidence that the German foreign minister in her remarks in China also stressed the idea of “derisking.”
Macron said before arriving in Beijing that he had asked Von der Leyen to accompany him on the trip in order to highlight what he termed “European unity” where European-Chinese relations are concerned. He said that such unity was necessary in order to launch a “balanced partnership” with China. A trilateral meeting was then hosted by Chinese President Xi Jinping on 6 April.
Before the visit, the Élysée Palace emphasised that the French president was committed to holding a permanent dialogue with China and was looking forward to working with the Chinese president in order to bring peace to Ukraine. It referred to the reopening of China after a three-year lockdown as an opportunity to relaunch French-Chinese relations on all tracks at a time of international tensions that made it all the more necessary to fix a new horizon to the “strategic partnership” between the two countries.
The French-Chinese talks centred on three major topics, namely international crises including the question of Taiwan and the war in Ukraine, cooperation between the two countries to meet the “great challenges” facing the world, and economic relations between France and China.
Concerning the military conflict in Ukraine, Macron called on President Xi to “bring Russia back to reason” in Ukraine. Meanwhile, Von der Leyen warned China against providing weapons to Russia and insisted that this would be a violation of international law and would significantly harm European-Chinese relations.
The talks held by the two European leaders in Beijing did not offer any glimmer of hope that Chinese mediation between Russia and Ukraine can be expected anytime soon. On the other hand, the Kremlin, in reaction to possible mediation by China, excluded Chinese mediation with a view to halting the fighting in Ukraine on 5 April on the grounds that the situation in the country is “complicated” and there are no perspectives for a political solution.
Baerbock spoke a different language in her talks with Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang during her visit to Beijing that came on the heels of Macron’s visit. She warned against any attempt to change the status quo in Taiwan and made clear that military escalation in the Strait of Taiwan, through which almost 50 per cent of world trade passes on a daily basis, would be a “horror scenario” for the world.
The Chinese foreign minister reaffirmed the traditional Chinese position that Taiwan is part of China and that the current tensions concerning Taiwan have been caused by Taiwanese “separatist forces.”
Concerning the war in Ukraine, Baerbock asked why China with its excellent relations with Russia was not exercising its influence with Moscow to stop the fighting. But despite the tough talk, economic and commercial relations between Germany and China are booming.
According to the latest edition of the UK magazine the Economist, China was Germany’s top trading partner in 2022 with total exports and imports worth more than €298 billion ($320 billion), an increase of 21 per cent over the previous year.
Maybe this is the reason why Baerbock insisted that the German government does not want to “decouple” from China but rather to “derisk” bilateral relations by diversifying supply chains away from China.
Taking the talks of the three European leaders in Beijing in the first two weeks of April together, the question is whether there is a unified European position regarding future relations with China, taking into account the war in Ukraine and tensions in the Strait of Taiwan. My guess is that the Europeans are trying hard to prove that they share a common policy in this regard even while there are differences.
Take, for instance, the remarks made by Macron on his return from China to the effect that the Europeans should not be “followers” of the United States when it comes to the question of Taiwan. An official source in the Élysée Palace had said days before the French president departed for the Chinese capital that France and the US did not share the same positions when it comes to relations with China for the simple reason that the two countries do not have the same interests.
Macron was probably right when he asked the Europeans to look for a “third way” instead of following US positions when it comes to China.
It was no surprise that pro-US Europeans and the Western media attacked, fiercely in most instances, the remarks Macron made in his interview with the French daily Les Echos, the radio station France Inter, and the Website Politico.
He said that the question before the Europeans was whether their interests aligned with those of the US as far as the question of Taiwan is concerned. His answer was in the negative, and he expressed the hope that Europe would depend less on the Americans when it comes to Taiwan.
Some Europeans then almost took these honest and responsible remarks as a kind of heresy. Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, the most hawkish European leader when it comes to relations with Russia, said that the alliance with the US was “a fundamental pillar of European security.”
But how many Europeans share this position and how long will they continue to do so?
The results of the talks that the three European leaders held in Beijing this month tell a different story. Even so, when the foreign ministers of the G7 group of countries met in mid-April in Karuizawa in Japan, they stressed in their final communiqué that peace and stability between China and Taiwan is “an indispensable element in security and prosperity in the world,” and they called for the “peaceful resolution of cross-Strait issues.”
The communiqué emphasised that there is “no legal basis for China’s expansive maritime claims in the South China Sea” and said that the foreign ministers opposed “China’s militarisation activities in the region.” Such positions drew strong reactions from the Chinese government, which refuted all the “accusations” made by the G7 ministers in Japan.
Japan will host the next G7 summit meeting in Hiroshima in May, which is expected to show that the group’s member states have a common position vis-à-vis Taiwan and the way to deal with China in case it tries to change the status quo in the Taiwan Strait.
The writer is former assistant foreign minister.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 27 April, 2023 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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