Chinese President Xi Jinping will pay a three-day visit to his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin next week, Beijing and Moscow announced Friday, with “strategic cooperation” on the agenda.
“On March 20-22, 2023, at the invitation of Vladimir Putin, president of the People’s Republic of China Xi Jinping will pay a state visit to Russia,” the Kremlin’s press service said in a statement.
“A number of important bilateral documents will be signed,” the statement reads.
Neither country confirmed previous reports from the Wall Street Journal that Xi would use the opportunity to call Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy — in what would be the first communication between the two leaders since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine last February.
While China was initially committed to a “no-limit partnership” passed with Moscow days before the beginning of the war in Ukraine, Beijing has since sought to position itself as a peace broker, introducing a 12-point plan for peace.
Yet, Beijing’s attempts have drawn criticism from Western leaders. China, they said, is anything but neutral in the war, and thus not a good fit to be playing the arbiter.
China has been accused by the U.S. of delivering non-lethal “support” to Russia — and, according to exclusive customs data obtained by POLITICO, Chinese companies shipped more than 1,000 assault rifles, drone parts and body armor to Russian entities between June and December of last year.
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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 )
Vladimir Putin said “Russia and China are reaching new levels of cooperation” after meeting Beijing’s top diplomat, Wang Yi, in Moscow on Wednesday.
The Russian president hailed the relationship between Beijing and Moscow as important to “stabilize the international situation,” adding that he awaits a visit from Chinese President Xi Jinping, according to the BBC.
Shortly before the start of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Putin and Xi signed a statement proclaiming that there were “no limits to Sino-Russian cooperation.” While Russia has become economically more dependent on China since the start of the conflict, Beijing has refused to publicly provide military support.
Wang told Putin that the relationship between China and Russia would “not succumb to pressure from third parties,” and pledged to deepen strategic cooperation with Moscow.
Earlier Wednesday, China’s top foreign policy official also met Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, at the end of a tour of European capitals.
Shortly after meeting Wang, Putin spoke at a rally at Moscow’s Luzhniki stadium to mark the one-year anniversary of launching his war on Ukraine, which falls on Friday. He praised Russian soldiers who “fight heroically, courageously, bravely” and said the war is taking place on Russia’s “historical frontiers.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy cautiously welcomed Beijing’s efforts toward ending the war in Ukraine and said he would like to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping to discuss China’s proposals.
Speaking at a press conference in Kyiv Friday to mark the first anniversary of Moscow’s invasion, Zelenskyy said he was open to considering some aspects of the 12-point “position paper” published by the Chinese foreign ministry. Both NATO and the EU have criticized the initiative, with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen saying that “China has taken sides” in the Ukraine conflict.
Beijing claims to have a neutral stance in the war but also has said it has a “no limits” relationship with Moscow and has refused to criticize President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
Zelenskyy said a meeting with Xi could be “useful” to both countries and for global security. “As far as I know, China respects historical integrity,” he told reporters in Kyiv.
“I believe that the fact that China started talking about Ukraine is not bad,” Zelenskyy said, according to the Associated Press. “But the question is what follows the words. The question is in the steps and where they will lead to.”
Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak called the Chinese proposals “unrealistic” in a tweet on Saturday.
Zelenskyy also warned Beijing against providing Russia with weapons, something of increasing concern to Western governments. China is considering providing drones and ammunition to help Moscow’s war efforts in Ukraine, a person familiar with the matter told POLITICO on Friday.
“I very much want to believe that China will not deliver weapons to Russia, and for me this is very important,” Zelenskyy said, according to Reuters.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg on Friday said the alliance is closely monitoring China’s activities, adding that Beijing sending lethal aid to Moscow would be a “very big mistake.”
French President Emmanuel Macron on Saturday welcomed Beijing’s initiative on the conflict in Ukraine and said he will visit China in early April and seek Chinese help in ending the war. “The fact that China is engaging in peace efforts is a good thing,” Macron said, according to French media reports.
The French leader also asked Beijing “not to supply any arms to Russia.” And he sought Beijing’s aid to “exert pressure on Russia to ensure it never uses chemical or nuclear weapons and it stops this aggression prior to negotiations,” according to the reports.
Meanwhile, Beijing announced on Saturday that Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko will visit China on a state visit from February 28 to March 2. The Belarusian foreign ministry confirmed the planned visit.
Lukashenko, a close ally of Putin, has backed Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine and allowed its territory to be used in the Russian assault. Lukashenko said last week that his country was prepared to join Russia’s war against Ukraine, if attacked.
Zelenskyy also said that any proposal to end the war would be acceptable only if it led to Putin pulling his troops out of all occupied Ukrainian territory.
Amid growing concerns in the West about Ukraine’s ability to recover all its territory, NATO’s biggest European members — Germany, France and the U.K. — are putting forward a defense pact with Ukraine as a way to encourage Kyiv toward peace talks with Moscow, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing officials from the three governments.
French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz told Zelensky at a meeting earlier this month in Paris that Kyiv needed to start considering peace talks with Moscow, the WSJ reported, citing people familiar with the conversation.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )
Beijing announced on Saturday that Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, will travel to China on a state visit from February 28 to March 2.
The announcement of the trip comes a day after Beijing, looking to play a role in mediating a resolution to the Russian war on Ukraine, published a 12-point “position paper” aimed at ending the conflict.
“At the invitation of President Xi Jinping, President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko will pay a state visit to China from February 28 to March 2,” the Chinese foreign ministry said in a statement on Saturday.
The Belarusian foreign ministry confirmed the planned visit, saying the Chinese and Belarusian foreign ministers discussed it in a telephone call on Friday.
Lukashenko has backed Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine and allowed its territory to be used in the Russian assault. Lukashenko said last week that his country was prepared to join Russia’s war against Ukraine, if attacked. That prompted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to warn the Belarusian leader not to get directly involved in the war.
Meanwhile, French President Emmanuel Macron on Saturday said he will visit China in early April and seek Beijing’s help in ending the war in Ukraine. “The fact that China is engaging in peace efforts is a good thing,” Macron said, according to French media reports.
Ukraine’s Zelenskyy also said he would like to engage with Beijing following the proposals unveiled on Friday toward resolving the conflict. Zelenskyy said he was open to considering some aspects of the Chinese “position paper” and would welcome the chance to discuss the proposals with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
A meeting with Xi could be “useful” to both countries and for global security, Zelenskyy said.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )
MUNICH — China is trying to drive a fresh wedge between Europe and the United States as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine trudges past its one-year mark.
Such was the motif of China’s newly promoted foreign policy chief Wang Yi when he broke the news at the Munich Security Conference on Saturday that President Xi Jinping would soon present a “peace proposal” to resolve what Beijing calls a conflict — not a war — between Moscow and Kyiv. And he pointedly urged his European audience to get on board and shun the Americans.
In a major speech, Wang appealed specifically to the European leaders gathered in the room.
“We need to think calmly, especially our friends in Europe, about what efforts should be made to stop the warfare; what framework should there be to bring lasting peace to Europe; what role should Europe play to manifest its strategic autonomy,” said Wang, who will continue his Europe tour with a stop in Moscow.
In contrast, Wang launched a vociferous attack on “weak” Washington’s “near-hysterical” reaction to Chinese balloons over U.S. airspace, portraying the country as warmongering.
“Some forces might not want to see peace talks to materialize,” he said, widely interpreted as a reference to the U.S. “They don’t care about the life and death of Ukrainians, [nor] the harms on Europe. They might have strategic goals larger than Ukraine itself. This warfare must not continue.”
Yet at the conference, Europe showed no signs of distancing itself from the U.S. nor pulling back on military support for Ukraine. The once-hesitant German Chancellor Olaf Scholz urged Europe to give Ukraine even more modern tanks. And French President Emmanuel Macron shot down the idea of immediate peace talks with the Kremlin.
And, predictably, there was widespread skepticism that China’s idea of “peace” will match that of Europe.
“China has not been able to condemn the invasion,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told a group of reporters. Beijing’s peace plan, he added, “is quite vague.” Peace, the NATO chief emphasized, is only possible if Russia respects Ukraine’s sovereignty.
Europe watches with caution
Wang’s overtures illustrate the delicate dance China has been trying to pull off since the war began.
Keen to ensure Russia is not weakened in the long run, Beijing has offered Vladimir Putin much-needed diplomatic support, while steering clear of any direct military assistance that would attract Western sanctions against its economic and trade relations with the world.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitro Kuleba is expected to hold a bilateral meeting with Wang while in Munich | Johannes Simon/Getty Images
“We will put forward China’s position on the political settlement on the Ukraine crisis, and stay firm on the side of peace and dialogue,” Wang said. “We do not add fuel to the fire, and we are against reaping benefit from this crisis.”
According to Italy’s Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani, who met Wang earlier this week, Xi will make his “peace proposal” on the first anniversary of the war, which is Friday.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitro Kuleba is expected to hold a bilateral meeting with Wang while in Munich. He said he hoped to have a “frank” conversation with the Beijing envoy.
“We believe that compliance with the principle of territorial integrity is China’s fundamental interest in the international arena,” Kuleba told journalists in Munich. “And that commitment to the observance and protection of this principle is a driving force for China, greater than other arguments offered by Ukraine, the United States, or any other country.”
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell is also expected to meet Wang later on Saturday.
Many in Munich were wary of the upcoming Chinese plan.
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock welcomed China’s effort to use its influence to foster peace but told reporters she had “talked intensively” with Wang during a bilateral meeting on Friday about “what a just peace means: not rewarding the attacker, the aggressor, but standing up for international law and for those who have been attacked.”
“A just peace,” she added, “presupposes that the party that has violated territorial integrity — meaning Russia — withdraws its troops from the occupied country.”
One reason for Europe’s concerns is the Chinese peace plan could undermine an effort at the United Nations to rally support for a resolution condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which will be on the U.N.’s General Assembly agenda next week, according to three European officials and diplomats.
Taiwan issue stokes up US-China tension
If China was keen to talk about peace in Ukraine, it’s more reluctant to do so in a case closer to home.
When Wolfgang Ischinger, the veteran German diplomat behind the conference, asked Wang if he could reassure the audience Beijing was not planning an imminent military escalation against Taiwan, the Chinese envoy was non-committal.
Nato Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said “what is happening in Europe today could happen in east Asia tomorrow” | Johannes Simon/Getty Images
“Let me assure the audience that Taiwan is part of Chinese territory. It has never been a country and it will never be a country in the future,” Wang said.
The worry over Taiwan resonated in a speech from NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, who said “what is happening in Europe today could happen in east Asia tomorrow.” Reminding the audience of the painful experience of relying on Russia’s energy supply, he said: “We should not make the same mistakes with China and other authoritarian regimes.”
But China’s most forceful attack was reserved for the U.S. Calling its decision to shoot down Chinese and other balloons “absurd” and “near-hysterical,” Wang said: “It does not show the U.S. is strong; on the contrary, it shows it is weak.
Wang also amplified the message in other bilateral meetings, including one with Pakistani Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari. “U.S. bias and ignorance against China has reached a ridiculous level,” he said. “The U.S. … has to stop this kind of absurd nonsense out of domestic political needs.”
It remains unclear if Wang will hold a meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken while in Germany, as has been discussed.
Hans von der Burchard and Lili Bayer reported from Munich, and Stuart Lau reported from Brussels.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )
Beijing’s top envoy to the EU on Wednesday questioned the West’s call to help Ukraine achieve “complete victory,” on the eve of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s possible arrival in Brussels.
Fu Cong, the Chinese ambassador to the EU, also criticized the bloc for “erosion” of its commitment on Taiwan, warning “senior officials from the EU institutions” to stop visiting the self-ruled island.
Fu’s provocative comments on Ukraine and Taiwan, two of the most sensitive geopolitical controversies between China and the West, come as Chinese President Xi Jinping is planning a trip to Moscow, according to the Russian government.
Insisting that the Russia-Ukraine “conflict” was merely an “unavoidable” talking point, Fu said Beijing otherwise enjoys a multifaceted “traditional friendship” with Moscow.
“Frankly speaking, we are quite concerned about the possible escalation of this conflict,” Fu said at an event hosted by the European Policy Centre in Brussels. “And we don’t believe that only providing weapons will actually solve the problem.”
“We are quite concerned about people talking about winning a complete victory on the battlefield. We believe that the right place would be at the negotiating table,” Fu added.
His remarks come on the same day as Zelenskyy visits London, his first trip to Western Europe since Russia launched its full-scale invasion almost a year ago. POLITICO reported that Zelenskyy — who according to his aides has never had his calls picked up by Xi, while the Chinese leader has instead met or called Putin on multiple occasions over the past year — was also planning a visit to Brussels on Thursday, before bungled EU communications threw the trip into doubt.
The idea of a “complete victory” for Ukraine has been most vocally supported by Baltic and Eastern European countries. French President Emmanuel Macron has vowed support for “victory” for Ukraine.
But toeing Xi’s line, Fu said the “security concerns of both sides” — Ukraine as well as Russia — should be taken care of.
Fu also dismissed the comparison between Ukraine and Taiwan, both of which face military threats from a nuclear-armed neighbor.
“I must state up front that [the] Ukrainian crisis and the Taiwan issue are two completely different things. Ukraine is an independent state, and Taiwan is part of China,” he said. “So there’s no comparability between the two issues.”
He went on to criticize the EU’s handling of the Taiwan issue.
“Nowadays, what we’re seeing is that there is some erosion of these basic commitments. We see that the parliamentarians and also senior officials from the EU institutions are also visiting Taiwan,” he said.
The European Commission has not publicized any details of its officials’ visit to Taiwan. The European External Action Service, the EU’s diplomatic arm, has not replied to a request for comment.
If the EU signed an investment treaty with Taiwan, Fu said this would “fundamentally change … or shake the foundation” of EU-China relations. “It is that serious.”
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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )
Chinese diplomats are fanning out with a new softer message for international partners and adversaries alike. Gone is the aggressive “wolf warrior” rhetoric. In its place, a warmer tone and a promise of economic cooperation.
Vice Premier Liu He took Beijing’s diplomatic olive branch to the exclusive annual huddle of the global political and business elite in Davos, Switzerland this week. With a heated transatlantic trade spat exploding in panel after panel and melting the Swiss Alpine snow, Liu offered a kinder, gentler Beijing.
“China’s national reality dictates that opening up to the world is a must, not an expediency. We must open up wider and make it work better,” Liu said on Tuesday.
The Chinese charm offensive drove a lot of private conversations in Davos amid the World Economic Forum gathering. Executives are eager to learn more — and as always to explore opportunities in a market as big as China’s. The shift, if real, would signal a return to something the Davos crowd considers more normal: a somewhat predictable, business-friendly Chinese communist leadership, more interested in making money than waging fights against internal critics or outside enemies. The improved economic relationship between China and Australia has fueled such optimism.
Western officials have heard the message as well, but are suspicious that the outreach is more diplomatic sparkle than an indication of substantive changes. They are leery that the growing economic and military threat posed by China remains despite the velvet gloves.
The shift has been gathering steam for weeks after China’s President Xi Jinping offered a warmer tone in his meeting with U.S. President Joe Biden in Bali in November. Xi urged a return to “healthy and stable growth” in bilateral relations.
That has set in motion a cascade of Chinese initiatives seemingly aimed at repairing the harm done by years of “wolf warrior”-style diplomacy; saber-rattling across the Taiwan Strait; a more bellicose military posture in the Indo-Pacific; economic coercion; and high-tech espionage.
China’s Foreign Ministry is rolling out a rhetorical red carpet for U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s visit in early February. Europe is bracing for a multi-country diplomacy spree by former Foreign Minister Wang Yi. On Wednesday in Zurich, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s meeting with Liu reaped an invitation to visit China “in the near future.” And the Chinese Foreign Ministry signaled gentler public messaging by banishing pugnacious spokesperson Zhao Lijian to the bureaucratic backwater of the ministry’s Department of Boundary and Ocean Affairs last week.
Western officials still have their guard up, though — particularly since Chinese diplomats were until recently issuing outright threats to their host countries.
“We are seeing a warmer Beijing that’s keen to talk about a business-as-usual approach, and there are fewer wolf warrior narratives,” an EU official told POLITICO on condition of anonymity because he isn’t authorized to speak on the record. “However, a softer face doesn’t necessarily mean a softer heart.”
Russia’s friend
That skepticism springs from the fact that Beijing isn’t matching its rhetorical expressions of bilateral goodwill with any substantive policy shifts. China’s “no limits” alignment with Russia continues even after Moscow’s war on Ukraine and record numbers of Chinese military aircraft regularly menace Taiwan. Beijing denies its well-documented abuses against Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang and continues what the U.S. calls “unfair trade practices” that sustain billions of dollars of U.S. tariffs on Chinese imports.
There are also suspicions that China is seeking to prevent the imposition of additional crippling U.S. export restrictions on high-technology items such as semi-conductors — and slow down or derail U.S. efforts to persuade its allies to do likewise.
Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping in Beijing | Pool photo by Ed Jones/Getty Images
“Xi wants the American boot off his neck — he can’t stomach any more tech containment or more sanctions and recognizes that a lot of [Beijing’s] foreign diplomacy has backfired and he wants to lower the temperature,” said Craig Singleton, senior China fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Beijing’s uptick in diplomatic outreach aims to “seek a reprieve from Washington’s regulatory assault on China’s tech sector, and then lay the groundwork to stimulate China’s economy after this current COVID wave subsides,” Singleton said.
China is in desperate need of an international image overhaul. The results of a Pew Research survey published in June indicated “negative views of China remain at or near historic highs” in 19 European and Asian countries due to concerns about human rights and perceptions of a growing Chinese military threat. Pew Research Center survey results released in September revealed that 82 percent of Americans in 2022 had “an unfavorable opinion of China,” an increase from 76 percent the previous year.
Beijing’s change in tone reflects its alarm at the Biden administration’s success in rallying international support for his China-countering Indo-Pacific Strategy. That has included arch-rival Japan’s embrace of closer defense ties with the U.S. underwritten by a multibillion-dollar investment in Tokyo’s military.
The ruling Chinese Communist Party’s sense of vulnerability is heightened by China’s raging COVID outbreak and an economy pummeled by three years of lockdown linked to the country’s now-defunct zero-COVID policy. “There’s recognition [in Beijing] that — wait a minute, the U.S. is not going anywhere, it is still a major geopolitical power — and so China has to reengage with the United States,” said Victor Shih, an expert in Chinese elite politics at the University of California, San Diego’s School of Global Policy and Strategy.
Uphill struggle
But old habits die hard. Vice Foreign Minister Xie Feng, the incoming Chinese ambassador to the U.S., accused the Biden administration of “besieging China through geopolitics such as the Indo-Pacific Strategy,” in a speech on Monday. And besides Zhao’s removal from the Foreign Ministry press briefing platform, Xi hasn’t fired or demoted any senior “wolf warrior” diplomats, points out Joshua Kurlantzick, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.
EU officials in Brussels are preparing for a visit by Wang, the former Chinese foreign minister who has been promoted into the 24-person Politburo, the Communist Party’s ruling body, to oversee foreign affairs.
But Wang faces an uphill struggle in convincing Europe of a shift in China’s diplomatic settings. The EU is angered by Xi’s close relationship with Moscow despite Russia’s aggression against Ukraine. In response, European leaders have started exploring the diversification of sources of key imports, including those from China.
In conversations with their European counterparts, Beijing officials and diplomats have adopted the tactic of highlightingrecent transatlantic disputes to try to persuade the Europeans that the U.S. — even after the Donald Trump era — remains an untrustworthy ally.
“They like to repeat the U.S. ‘gains’ in the Russian war against Ukraine, as well as the IRA,” another European official said, referring to the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act, which is seen by many Europeans as a protectionist policy unfavorable to EU businesses. China claims that the U.S. military-industrial complex stands to gain from the war, while Europe suffers more from the energy crisis than the U.S.
Beijing is also reaching out to traditional allies in the U.S. business community to amplify its more benign messaging. Wang sat down in Beijing last month with John Thornton, former Goldman Sachs president and the current executive chair of Barrick Gold Corporation. That meeting signaled that “China is open to dialogue with the United States at all levels,” current Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang tweeted.
China’s former Foreign Minister Wang Yi addresses the 77th session of the United Nations General Assembly | Yuki Iwamura/AFP via Getty Images
Similar outreach to the European business community may fall flat.
“China heavily subsidizes its industry and restricts access to its market for EU companies,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said during the World Economic Forum in Davos on Tuesday. “We need to focus on de-risking rather than decoupling. This means using all our tools to deal with unfair practices.”
But Beijing will hope that persisting with the warmer rhetoric will pay off even if the fundamentals don’t change.
“There are elements of Wall Street and certain constituencies in the U.S. government that are extremely receptive to talk about stability and predictability in the U.S.-China relationship after a very volatile two years,” said Singleton from the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. “But it’s an illusion.”
Matt Kaminski contributed reporting from Davos, Switzerland.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )
