There is unusual bipartisan consensus in the American Congress when it comes to China. Ironically, there is at present more consensus in America on policy towards China than on policy towards either Ukraine or indeed towards Israel. That is saying a lot.
While the telephonic call between Joe Biden and Xi Jinping was free from acrimony, visits since then from the US especially that of Secretary of State Anthony Blinken have hardened positions on both sides. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen first raised thorny issues of Tik Tok, unfair trade subsidies and industrial overcapacity with her Chinese interlocutors. This met with the usual Chinese reaction that market forces and Chinese productivity/efficiency are at work. It is extremely unlikely that China will change its industrial policy upon the request of the US. Blinken’s visit was much more difficult and fractious. Indeed, the media in China was unusually harsh in treating the Blinken visit and urged the Chinese Government to take a hard line. After all, this visit was at the “invitation” of China, and the media was wondering why he was invited in the first place. Blinken, for his part, made clear that the main issue at present in the relationship was Chinese security assistance to Russia which according to Americans was tilting the war in favour of the latter. Ironically, Blinken said if China sought good ties with Europe it cannot possibly help Russia in the war in Ukraine. The other issue raised by Blinken, namely, China’s actions in the South China Sea and in the Taiwan Strait also drew a predictable response from China: defiance and denial.
Prior to Blinken’s visit from 24 to 26 April, the German Chancellor Olaf Scholz paid a visit to China for three days accompanied by who else but top executives from Mercedes Benz and BMW. On de-risking, the Chief Executive of BMW said it all to a Chinese news channel: We actually see more opportunities than risks in China. Must have been music to Chinese ears! Clearly, there is daylight between the China policy of Brussels and that of Berlin. Significantly, there was no clear demarche by Scholz to the Chinese about their military assistance to Russia; instead, he asked Xi Jinping to use his influence with Putin to urge the latter to end the insane war in Ukraine.
That brings us to the China policy of the other important European power, i.e. France. Chinese President Xi Jinping is expected to make his first European visit, post-pandemic, to Paris in the first week of May to celebrate the sixtieth anniversary of establishment of diplomatic relations between France and China. Xi Jinping is visiting Paris also as a measure of reciprocity after Macron decided early on to visit Beijing every single year of his presidency. While trade will be high on the agenda, China will seek to mollify France and the EU with large orders of Airbus. Still, the question is whether Macron will seriously take up with Xi Jinping the issue of China’s security assistance to Russia in the war in Ukraine. Or will he, like Olaf Scholz, urge Xi Jinping to persuade Putin to end the war and seek negotiations. If the war in Ukraine was truly existential for Europe, you would expect both Germany and France to raise the issue of critical military assistance from China to Russia which may be tilting the war. But this does not seem to be happening.
Behind all this is a waiting game. And that concerns the American elections. You can be sure that no major power is going to fundamentally alter its stance on Ukraine or reveal all its cards, until it knows who the next occupant of the White House is!
Diplomacy and Geopolitics 