Filenews 21 December 2022
By Matthew Brooker
It was the year when Europe's eyes as to what China is seem to have opened up. Heading towards 2023, the clarity created by Beijing's attitude towards the Russian invasion of Ukraine is in danger of being lost. The leaders of a continent overwhelmed by rising energy prices and economic hardship are showing signs that they want to "get back together" with the world's largest trading nation as if nothing had happened. That would be a mistake. Wishful thinking is never the basis of a healthy relationship.
Consistently pro-Russian
It is worth recapitulating to see how the "tone" has changed since Vladimir Putin's troops crossed the border of Ukraine at the end of February. The attack came less than three weeks after Chinese leader Xi Jinping proclaimed a "limitless" partnership with Russia, which amounted to a plan to overhaul the international order and the rules on which it is based.
After the invasion, Beijing declared itself neutral and reiterated its respect for the principles of territorial integrity and national sovereignty. However, he has consistently refused to criticise Russia. Chinese officials have blamed the U.S. for the conflict, and Chinese state media have consistently repeated their pro-Moscow narrative, while ruling out references to Ukraine's woes. It is clear where the Chinese Government's sympathies are leaning.
The Communist Party of China has never hidden its hostility to the liberal values on which the US-led world order is based, although this antipathy has become completely open and firmer under Xi.
For Europe, which is witnessing the largest military conflict on its territory since the end of the Second World War, China's de facto support for Russian aggression has given a new level of reality to this clash of values. Perhaps the most striking expression of the change of consciousness caused by all this came from European Commission Vice-President Josep Borrell, who, in a speech following the EU-China Summit in April, called it a 'dialogue of the deaf'. The 75-year-old former Foreign Minister of Spain continued:
"China wanted to put aside our dispute over Ukraine – it didn't want to talk about Ukraine. They did not want to talk about human rights and other issues and, instead, they wanted to focus on the positive things. The European side has made it clear that this 'compartmentalisation' of dialogue is not feasible, it is not acceptable. For us, the war in Ukraine is a defining moment in whether we live in a world governed by rules or violence. That is the question. We condemn Russian aggression against Ukraine and support the sovereignty and democracy of that country - not because we 'blindly follow the US', as China sometimes implies, but because it is our position, our genuine position, we believe in it. This was an important message that the Chinese leadership needed to hear."
Cracks
Compare this passionate statement of the European principled stance with the comments of French President Emmanuel Macron after his meeting with Xi at the G20 Summit in Bali in November. Macron said he was confident China could play "a more important mediating role" in Ukraine in the coming months. At the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Thailand that followed, he called for broadening coordination with Beijing and urged Europe to take a middle ground between the "two great elephants", the US and China.
The above should have provided satisfaction to Xi, who also met Mark Rutte of the Netherlands, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and Italian Prime Minister Georgia Meloni in Bali. China has focused its efforts on creating a wedge between Europe and the US, and tensions over Washington's green energy incentives and restrictions on semiconductors have given Beijing an economic opening. Macron plans to visit Beijing in the new year, following in the footsteps of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who led a delegation of top business executives in the Chinese capital in early November.
All this will make it difficult for those who see that China's position on Ukraine fundamentally changes the security equation for Europe (Chinese officials, including Xi, have periodically expressed "concern" during the war, although they never abandoned their pro-Russian stance). Days before traveling to Beijing, Scholz's government agreed to sell a stake in a Hamburg port terminal to China's state-owned Cosco Shipping Holdings — a decision that pitted Germany's leader against the country's economy, foreign affairs, finance, transport and defence ministers, as well as the country's security services.
In early December, Scholz wrote a 5,000-word article in the American magazine Foreign Affairs, in which he noted that the world is facing a Zeitenwende — or a seasonal tectonic change — as a result of Russia's war in Ukraine. The article denounced Putin's aggression and contempt for the principles of the UN charter and contained some shocking affirmations of democratic values in the face of authoritarian provocations.
Scholz dedicated a section of it to China, saying its growing power does not justify its ambitions for hegemony in Asia, while criticizing the country's move away from opening up to the world. But, he wrote, China's emergence does not justify isolating Beijing or limiting cooperation. Not a single sentence in this lengthy essay unites China with Russia or refers to Beijing's stance on Ukraine. This is very similar to the "partitioning" which was unacceptable to Borrell in April.
The EU and China have a $700 billion trade relationship. Such a huge economic blockage makes it necessary to discuss and cooperate wherever possible. The tone of some European leaders, however, suggests a view of Beijing that seems clearly outdated: a regime that, by name, is an ideological adversary, but which can be kept on Europe's side and coerced through trade and investment ties.
It is reminiscent of how Germany once viewed Putin's Russia. We know where that perception ended up. There are therefore no excuses for repeating the mistake.
