Finland will formally become a full-fledged NATO ally on Tuesday, the alliance’s Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said Monday.
“This is an historic week,” the NATO chief told reporters. “Tomorrow, we will welcome Finland as the 31st member of NATO, making Finland safer and our alliance stronger.”
A ceremony marking Finland’s accession is set to take place Tuesday afternoon.
“We will raise the Finnish flag for the first time here at the NATO headquarters,” Stoltenberg said, adding: “It will be a good day for Finland’s security, for Nordic security, and for NATO as a whole.”
The move comes after Hungary and Turkey ratified Finland’s membership bid last week, removing the last hurdles to Helsinki’s accession.
Sweden’s membership aspiration, however, remains in limbo as Budapest and Ankara continue to withhold support.
Speaking ahead of a meeting of NATO foreign ministers, Stoltenberg reiterated that he believes Stockholm is still on its way to ultimately joining the alliance as well.
“All allies,” he said, “agree that Sweden’s accession should be completed quickly.”
At their meeting on Tuesday and Wednesday, ministers will discuss the alliance’s defense spending goals and future relationship with Kyiv.
They will also attend a session of the NATO-Ukraine Commission together with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba and meet with partners from Australia, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea.
In his press conference, the NATO chief also addressed multiple challenges facing the transatlantic alliance, including Russian President Vladimir Putin’s recent announcement that Russia will deploy tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus.
Putin’s announcement is “part of a pattern of dangerous, reckless nuclear rhetoric” and an effort to use nuclear weapons as “intimidation, coercion to stop NATO allies and partners from supporting Ukraine.”
“We will not be intimidated,” the NATO boss said.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg and Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin of Finland | Heikki Saukkomaa/Lehtikuva/AFP via Getty Images
The alliance “remains vigilant, we monitor very closely what Russia does,” he said. “But so far,” he added, “we haven’t seen any changes in their nuclear posture” that require any change in NATO’s nuclear stance.
In a statement Monday, the Finnish president’s office said that, “Finland will deposit its instrument of accession to the North Atlantic Treaty with the U.S. State Department in Brussels on Tuesday” before the start of NATO foreign ministers’ session.
Sanna Marin, the prime minister when Finland applied to join NATO, suffered defeat in a national election on Sunday. Her Social Democrats finished third, with the center-right National Coalition Party coming out on top.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )
As he jets off for a state visit to Moscow this week, China’s President Xi Jinping is doing so in defiance of massive international pressure. Vladimir Putin, the man Xi once called his “best, most intimate friend,” has just become the world’s most wanted alleged war criminal.
The International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Putin on March 17 for his alleged role in illegally transferring Ukrainian civilians into Russian territories. But that isn’t deterring Xi, who broke Communist Party norms and formally secured a third term as Chinese leader this month.
But why is China’s leader so determined to stand by Putin despite the inevitable backlash, at a time when the West is increasingly suspicious of Beijing’s military aims — and scrutinizing prized Chinese companies like TikTok — more closely than ever?
For a start, Beijing’s worldview requires it to stay strategically close to Russia: As Beijing’s leaders see it, the U.S. is blocking China’s path to global leadership, aided by European governments, while most of its own geographical neighbors — from Japan and South Korea to Vietnam and India — are increasingly skeptical rather than supportive.
“The Chinese people are not prone to threats. Paper tigers such as the U.S. would definitely not be able to threaten China,” declared a commentary on Chinese state news agency Xinhua previewing Xi’s trip to Russia. The same article slammed Washington for threatening to sanction China if it provided Russia with weapons for its invasion of Ukraine. “The more the U.S. wants to crush the two superpowers, China and Russia, together … the closer China and Russia lean on each other.”
It’s a view that chimes with the rhetoric from the Kremlin. “Washington does not want this war to end. Washington wants and is doing everything to continue this war. This is the visible hand,” Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said earlier this month.
10-year bromance
To understand Xi’s preference for Putin even though China’s economy is so intertwined with the West, analysts say it’s not just important to factor in Beijing’s vision for the future, but also to grasp the history that the Chinese and Russian leaders share.
“They’re just six months apart in terms of age. Their fathers both fought in World War II … Both men had hardships in their youths. Both have daughters,” said Alexander Gabuev, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace think tank and an expert on Russo-Chinese relations. “And they are both increasingly like an emperor and a tsar, equally obsessed with Color Revolutions.”
Their “bromance,” as Gabuev put it, began in 2013 when Xi met Putin toward the end of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Bali — on Putin’s birthday. Citing two people present at the impromptu birthday party, Gabuev said the occasion was “not a boozy night, but they opened up and there was a really functioning chemistry.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit in Nusa Dua in 2013 | Mast Irham/AFP via Getty Images
According to Putin himself, Xi presented him with a cake while the Russian leader pulled out a bottle of vodka for a toast. The pair then reminisced over shots and sandwiches. “I’ve never established such relations or made such arrangements with any other foreign colleague, but I did it with President Xi,” Putin told the Chinese CCTV broadcaster in 2018. “This might seem irrelevant, but to talk about President Xi, this is where I would like to start.”
Those remarks were followed by a trip to Beijing, where Xi presented Putin with China’s first friendship medal. “He is my best, most intimate friend,” Xi said. “No matter what fluctuations there are in the international situation, China and Russia have always firmly taken the development of relations as a priority.”
Xi has stuck to those words, even after Putin launched his invasion of Ukraine just over a year ago. Less than three weeks beforehand, Putin visited Beijing and signed what China once referred to as a “no limits” partnership. Chinese officials have steered clear of criticizing Russia — and they wouldn’t even call it a war — while echoing Putin’s narrative that NATO expansion was to blame.
Close but not equal
Concerns are mounting over Beijing’s potential to provide Russia with weapons. Last week, POLITICO reported that Chinese companies, including one connected to the government in Beijing, have sent Russian entities 1,000 assault rifles and other equipment that could be used for military purposes, including drone parts and body armor, according to customs data.
Chinese and Russian armed forces have also teamed up for joint exercises outside Europe. Most recently, they held naval drills together with Iran in the Gulf of Oman.
During Xi’s visit this week, the two leaders are expected to conclude up to a dozen agreements, according to Russian media TASS. Experts say Xi and Putin are likely to sign further agreements to boost trade — especially in energy — as well as make more efforts to trade in their own currencies.
Xi is also expected to reiterate China’s “position paper” with a view to settling what it calls the “Ukraine crisis.” The paper, released last month, mentions the need to respect sovereignty and resume peace talks, but also includes Russian talking points such as dissuading “expanding military blocs” — a veiled criticism of U.S. support for Ukraine to potentially join NATO. There are also reports that Xi could be talking by phone with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy after the Moscow visit.
But Beijing’s overall top priority is to “lock Russia in for the long term as China’s junior partner,” wrote Ryan Hass, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, a think tank. “For Xi, cementing Russia as China’s junior partner is fundamental to his vision of national rejuvenation.”
To achieve this, Putin’s stay in power is non-negotiable for Beijing, he wrote: “China’s … objective is to guard against Russia failing and Putin falling.”
What better way, then, to show support than attending a state banquet when your notorious friend needs you most?
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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )
LONDON — Britain was rebuffed by the Biden administration after multiple requests to develop an advanced trade and technology dialogue similar to structures the U.S. set up with the European Union.
On visits to Washington as a Cabinet minister over the past two years, Liz Truss urged U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and senior Biden administration officials to intensify talks with the U.K. to build clean technology supply chains and boost collaboration on artificial intelligence (AI) and semiconductors.
After Truss became prime minister in fall 2022, the idea was floated again when Raimondo visited London last October, people familiar with the conversations told POLITICO. But fear of angering the U.S.’s European partners and the U.K.’s diminished status outside the EU post-Brexit have posed barriers to influencing Washington.
Businesses, lawmakers and experts worry the U.K. is being left on the sidelines.
“We tried many times,” said a former senior Downing Street official, of the British government’s efforts to set up a U.K. equivalent to the U.S.-E.U. Trade and Technology Council (TTC), noting Truss’ overtures began as trade chief in July 2021. They requested anonymity to speak on sensitive issues.
“We did speak to Gina Raimondo about that, saying ‘we think it would be a good opportunity,’” said the former official — not necessarily to join the EU-U.S. talks directly, “but to increase trilateral cooperation.”
Set up in June 2021, the TTC forum co-chaired by Raimondo, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and U.S. trade chief Katherine Tai gives their EU counterparts, Margrethe Vestager and Valdis Dombrovskis, a direct line to shape tech and trade policy.
The U.S. is pushing forward with export controls on advanced semiconductors to China; forging new secure tech supply chains away from Beijing; and spurring innovation through subsidies for cutting-edge green technology and microprocessors.
The TTC’s 10 working groups with the EU, Raimondo said in an interview late last year, “set the standards,” though Brussels has rebuffed Washington’s efforts to use the transatlantic body to go directly after Beijing.
But the U.K. “is missing the boat on not being completely engaged in that dialogue,” said a U.S.-based representative of a major business group. “There has been some discussion about the U.K. perhaps joining the TTC,” they confirmed, and “it was kind of mooted, at least in private” with Raimondo by the Truss administration on her visit to London last October.
The response from the U.S. had been ‘’let’s work with what we’ve got at the moment,’” said the former Downing Street official.
Even if the U.S. does want to talk, “they don’t want to irritate the Europeans,” the same former official added. Right now the U.K.’s conversations with the U.S. on these issues are “ad hoc” under the new Atlantic Charter Boris Johnson and Joe Biden signed around the G7 summit in 2021, they said, and “nothing institutional.”
Last October, Washington and London held the first meeting of the data and tech forum Johnson and Biden set up | Pool photo by Olivier Matthys/AFP via Getty Images
Securing British access to the U.S.-EU tech forum or an equivalent was also discussed when CBI chief Tony Danker was in Washington last July, said people familiar with conversations during his visit.
The U.K.’s science and tech secretary, Michelle Donelan, confirmed the British government had discussed establishing a more regular channel for tech and trade discussions with the U.S., both last October and more recently. “My officials have just been out [to the U.S.],” she told POLITICO. “They’ve had very productive conversations.”
A U.K. government spokesperson said: “The U.K. remains committed to working closely with the U.S. and EU to further our shared trade and technology objectives, through the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement, the U.S.-U.K. Future of Atlantic Trade dialogues, and the U.K.-U.S. technology partnership.
“We will continue to advance U.K. interests in trade and technology and explore further areas of cooperation with partners where it is mutually beneficial.”
Britain the rule-taker?
Last October, Washington and London held the first meeting of the data and tech forum Johnson and Biden set up. Senior officials hoped to get a deal securing the free flow of data between the U.S. and U.K. across the line and addressed similar issues as the TTC.
They couldn’t secure the data deal. The U.K. is expected to join a U.S.-led effort to expand data transfer rules baked into the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation trading agreement as soon as this year, according to a former and a current British official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. The next formal meeting between the U.K. and U.S. is penciled in for January 2024.
Ongoing dialogue “is vital to secure an overarching agreement on U.K.-U.S. data flows, without which modern day business cannot function,” said William Bain, head of trade policy at the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC). “It would also provide an opportunity to set the ground rules around a host of other technological developments.”
In contrast, the U.S. and EU are always at work, with TTC officials in constant contact with the operation — though questions have been raised about how long-term the transatlantic cooperation is likely to prove, ahead of next year’s U.S. presidential election.
“Unless you have a structured system or setup, often overseen by ministers, you don’t really get the drive to actually get things done,” said the former Downing Street official.
Right now cooperation with the U.S. on tech issues is not as intense or structured as desired, the same former official said, and is “not really brought together” in one central forum.
Britain has yet to publish a formal semiconductor strategy | Thomas Coex/AFP via Getty Images
“This initiative [the TTC] between the world’s two regulatory powerhouses risks sidelining the U.K.,” warned lawmakers on the UK parliament’s foreign affairs committee in a report last October. Britain may become “a rule-taker rather than a rule-maker,” MPs noted, citing the government’s “ambiguous” position on technology standards. Britain has yet to publish a formal semiconductor strategy, and others on critical minerals — like those used in EV batteries — or AI are also missing.
Over the last two years, U.S. trade chief Tai has “spoken regularly to her three successive U.K. counterparts to identify and tackle shared economic and trade priorities,” said a spokesperson for the U.S. Trade Representative, adding “we intend to continue strengthening this partnership in the years to come.”
All eyes on Europe
For its part, the EU has to date shown little interest in closer cooperation with the U.K.
Three European Commission officials disregarded the likelihood of Britain joining the club, though one of those officials said that London may be asked to join — alongside other like-minded countries — for specific discussions related to ongoing export bans against Russia.
Even with last week’s breakthrough over the Northern Ireland protocol calming friction between London and Brussels, the U.K. was not a priority country for involvement in the TTC, added another of the EU officials.
“The U.K. was extremely keen to be part of a dialogue of some sort of equivalent of TTC,” said a senior business representative in London, who requested anonymity to speak about sensitive issues.
U.K. firms see “the Holy Grail” as Britain, the U.S. and EU working together on this, they said. “We’re very keen to see a triangular dialogue at some point.”
The U.K.’s haggling with the EU over the details of the Northern Ireland protocol governing trade in the region has posed “a political obstacle” to realizing that vision, they suggested.
Yet with a solution to the dispute announced in late February, the same business figure said, “there will be a more prominent push to work together with the U.K.”
TTC+
Some trade experts think the U.K. would increase its chances of accession to the TTC if it submitted a joint request with other nations.
But prior to that happening, “I think the EU-U.S. TTC will need to first deliver bilaterally,” said Sabina Ciofu, an international tech policy expert at the trade body techUK.
Representatives speak to the media following the Trade and Technology Council Meeting in Maryland | Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images
When there is momentum, Ciofu said, the U.K. should join forces with Japan, South Korea and other advanced economies to ask for a TTC+ that could include the G7 or other partners. At the last TTC meeting in December, U.S. and EU officials said they were open to such an expansion around specific topics that had global significance.
But not all trade experts think this is essential. Andy Burwell, director of international trade at the CBI, said he doesn’t “think it necessarily matters” whether the U.K. has a structured conversation with the U.S. like the TTC forum.
Off the back of a soon-to-be-published refresh of the Integrated Review — the U.K.’s national security and foreign policy strategy — Prime Minister Rishi Sunak should instead seize the opportunity, Burwell said, to pinpoint where Britain is “going to own, collaborate and have access to various aspects of the supply chains.”
The G7, Burwell said, “could be the right platform for having some of those conversations.”
Yet the “danger with the ad hoc approach with lots of different people is incoherence,” said the former Downing Street official quoted above.
Too many countries involved in setting the standards can, the former official said, “create difficulty in leveraging what you want — which is all of the countries agreeing together on a certain way forward … especially when you’re dealing with issues that relate to, for example, China.”
Mark Scott, Annabelle Dickson and Tom Bristowcontributed reporting.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )
LONDON — Joe Biden’s “protectionist” Inflation Reduction Act won’t help the U.S. counter the rise of China and could create a “single point of failure” in key supply chains, Britain’s trade chief Kemi Badenoch warned.
Speaking at a POLITICO event Tuesday night, Badenoch — recently promoted to head up the U.K.’s new Department for Business and Trade — predicted the flagship law would not achieve its key aims, and insisted the U.K. is not sitting on the sidelines in the transatlantic tussle over the plan.
The comments came just minutes after the U.S. ambassador to the U.K. mounted a spirited defense of the IRA at the same event.
The Inflation Reduction Act offers billions in subsidies and tax credits to try and incentivize take-up of electric vehicles and build up green infrastructure. But European and British carmakers are particularly concerned about the impact on their own industries of massive help for U.S. firms.
Speaking on Tuesday night, Badenoch said Britain — which has been lobbying against the plan but is not prepping its own subsidies — is “working very well with a group of like-minded countries who are worried about the Inflation Reduction Act.”
“The EU is very worried and we’re working jointly with them on it,” she said. “It’s not just the EU doing stuff and we’re not in the room. Japan is worried. South Korea is worried. Switzerland is worried.”
Many countries, Badenoch contended, are now “looking at what the U.S. is doing” with concern.
“It is onshoring in a way that could actually create problems with the supply chain for everybody else,” she said.
“And that will not have the impact that it wants to have when it’s looking at the economic challenge that China presents. So no, I don’t think it’s a good idea, not just because it’s protectionist. But it also creates a single point of failure in a different place, when actually what we want is diversification and strengthening of supply chains across the board.”
Speaking earlier Tuesday night, U.S. Ambassador to the U.K. Jane Hartley argued that the plan could have major positive implications for countries beyond the U.S.
“One of the things I would say is there’s going to be a huge amount of money, R&D — the technology is going to improve, the technology is going to be cheaper,” she said. “The technology is going to be used by everyone in the world — not just the U.S.”
Hartley stressed that U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is “looking pretty hard” at the act during its so-called comment period, when U.S. agencies take feedback on a plan. Both President Biden and U.S. Trade Secretary Katherine Tai had, she said, stressed that their country “didn’t do this to hurt our allies — we want to protect our allies.”
CORRECTION: A previous version of this article misstated Janet Yellen’s job title. She is the treasury secretary.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )
