Coming close on the heels of the summit meeting between the Chinese leader Xi Jinping and American President Joe Biden in California last month, the Chinese supremo received the two EU leaders, namely, EU Council President Charles Michel and EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in Beijing on 7 December, 2023. It was the 24th annual EU-China summit meeting.
There was no Joint Statement issued after the above meeting, perhaps a sign of the times. There was no Joint Statement after the Biden-Xi meeting in California either. One inference may be that ties between the major powers are so fraught that the very fact of their meeting at summit level must be welcomed as a positive and only achievement. Differences appear tough to resolve, so the maximum that can be expected is to “manage” these differences by good optics.
From press reports it is clear what EU conveyed to Xi Jinping. The Chinese readout from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in contrast, is general and rhetorical.
EU seems to have emphasized the following in its message to China:
(1) While China is EU’s most important trading partner, the current trade deficit of about Euros 400 billion is unacceptable for EU. Chinese response was to say that it was not deliberate Chinese trade policy to have a trade surplus! EU, on the other hand, believes this is directly attributable to “overcapacity” of the Chinese manufacturing industry and to Chinese barriers faced by EU companies. EU said it had tools at its disposal to deal with this but that it would prefer a mutually acceptable solution. EU stated the idea was not to decouple from China but to de-risk!
(2) Digital economy was stressed and EU sought easing of cross border data flows.
(3) Cooperation in the context of the ongoing COP 28 climate conference was emphasized.
(4) EU welcomed the resumption of Human Rights Dialogue in February 2023 and reiterated its deep concerns of the human rights situation in China especially in Xinjiang, Tibet and Hong Kong.
(5) While EU reiterated its One China policy, it did express concern about the tension in the Taiwan Strait and at unilateral measures to change the status quo in the South and East China sea.
(6) EU asked China to put pressure on Russia to stop the aggression in Ukraine. EU reminded China of its special responsibility as UNSC P-5 Member to uphold the UN Charter and the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Un member states. On Ukraine, China said a ceasefire must be instituted asap. The European Union wants Beijing to use its influence on Russia to stop the war, and urged Xi to stop Chinese private companies exporting European-made dual-use items to Russia. Brussels initially left these Chinese firms off its latest Russia sanctions package unveiled last month, but could just as easily change course. China’s response to all this was that Russia is a sovereign and independent country and that Putin took decisions based on its national interest!
(7) On the conflict in Gaza, the only thing both sides agreed was their joint commitment to a two-state solution.
For China’s part, the summit meeting with the EU is really part of a diplomatic strategy to promote a multipolar world. China’s interpretation of this is to encourage the EU to be an “independent actor” and practice “strategic autonomy”. It is clear that China expects this independence and strategic autonomy to be practiced by the EU vis-a-vis the US. It also helps China that there is no consensus among the 27 member states on a unified policy, much less strategy, with regard to China. Italy for instance has announced that it is withdrawing from the Belt and Road Initiative, a serious setback for China. China’s spokesperson at the Foreign Ministry said that China firmly opposes smearing and undermining cooperation in building the Belt and Road Initiative, and opposes stoking bloc confrontation. This is puzzling since Italy’s decision was sovereign and based on its national interest.
Be that as it may, the Chinese side called the talks candid, frank, in-depth and constructive. Xi reportedly said that China and the EU should handle their differences through dialogue and warned the EU against confrontation with China adding that the two sides should not regard each other as rivals because of different systems. Cooperation rather than confrontation was emphasized by Xi. But the EU sees China not just as a partner for cooperation but an economic competitor and a systemic rival. It is difficult to square this circle.
The EU may not sound as belligerent as the US towards China, but deep inside it does have the same concerns about China. For instance, the EU has begun subsidy investigation against Chinese exports of electric vehicles, thereby drawing China’s ire. EU has also put in place restrictions on export of sensitive European technology to China, which the latter believes are unjustified.
Most importantly, Xi Jinping is reported to have said that “all kinds of interference” must be eliminated from EU-China ties, a not so subtle reference to the influence of the US and the Transatlantic Alliance. The Chinese side in its readout only stressed the following: EU does not wish to decouple from China, that EU reiterated the One China policy and the fact that EU desired to have close communication and coordination with China, uphold multilateralism and the purposes and principles of the U.N. Charter, and work for the settlement of regional hotspots including Ukraine and the Middle East. Really motherhood and apple pie kind of language.
Last year in April 2022 after a similar EU-China summit, EU High Representative for foreign policy, Josep Borell, said that it turned out to be a “dialogue of the deaf”. It is hard to see how this year’s EU-China summit can be described any differently.
Diplomacy and Geopolitics 