Xi Jinping declined to come to Brussels for this year’s EU-China Summit, which should have celebrated 50 years of bilateral relations. Instead the event was cut down to one day in Beijing. Earlier today, at the keynote meeting with EU leaders, Xi told them that China and Europe “should make correct strategic choices that meet the expectations of the people”. EU-China tension is high over trade issues and US actions, but also over China’s role in Ukraine, which lies at the heart of the EU’s growing strategic mistrust.
Outwardly, Beijing continues to pretend that its stance on Ukraine focuses on “negotiation, ceasefire and peace”. But this neutral façade has worn away to a vanishing point. President von der Leyen recently accused China of “de facto enabling Russia’s war economy”, and noted that how it “continues to interact with Putin’s war will be a determining factor for EU-China relations”. More recently the European Union head of foreign policy has called Beijing the “key enabler of Russia’s war in Ukraine”.
Brussels has already sanctioned Chinese companies for selling goods that have been used for weapons production in Russia. China continues to pressurise the EU not to enforce trade measures to China’s disadvantage. Today, Xi has pointedly warned the EU not to make wrong strategic decisions about China. But what strategic decisions has he made that would give grounds for greater confidence in China’s bona fides towards Europe?
From a geopolitical perspective, China’s position is entirely clear. Xi values his expedient alliance with Putin in opposition to the US far more even than China’s economic foothold in the EU market. The tense and combative tone of Beijing’s approach to the EU summit contrasts strongly with the atmospherics of Xi’s May Day visit to Moscow this year as Putin’s guest of honour, even as Russia was stepping up its brutal assault on a geographical Europe’s second-largest country.
Xi’s “strategic choice” is not in Europe’s favour. Earlier this month, China’s foreign minister Wang Yi told his European counterpart that “China cannot accept Russia losing its war against Ukraine” since this would enable the US to turn its full attention to contesting with China. This unusually stark formulation wipes out at a stroke China’s carefully cultivated outward pose of peaceful neutrality. But in truth, there is nothing neutral about existing Chinese engagement on the ground.
Earlier this week Ukrainian intelligence announced that it had retrieved two drones, apparently in use as decoys against Ukrainian air defences, which were entirely made of Chinese components. These items join a formidable list of other Chinese materiel found in Ukraine. Russia has recently deployed a Chinese-made laser system, the Silent Hunter, which locks on to, blinds and destroys Ukrainian drones. Chinese-made engines powered Geran-2 combat drones used to grim effect in a recent surge of attacks on Kyiv. The US government assesses that China “provides nearly 80 per cent of the dual-use items Russia needs to sustain the war”.
Xi has made his strategic choice; to back Putin’s attack on Europe on the battlefield. In these circumstances, to claim as China does that it is not a “systemic rival” is absurd. China is an enemy of Europe, as it is of Britain, and the sooner this results in strengthening Nato and individual Western defence policies against China, the better.
Xi Jinping declined to come to Brussels for this year’s EU-China Summit, which should have celebrated 50 years of bilateral relations. Instead the event was cut down to one day in Beijing. Earlier today, at the keynote meeting with EU leaders, Xi told them that China and Europe “should make correct strategic choices that meet the expectations of the people”. EU-China tension is high over trade issues and US actions, but also over China’s role in Ukraine, which lies at the heart of the EU’s growing strategic mistrust.
Outwardly, Beijing continues to pretend that its stance on Ukraine focuses on “negotiation, ceasefire and peace”. But this neutral façade has worn away to a vanishing point. President von der Leyen recently accused China of “de facto enabling Russia’s war economy”, and noted that how it “continues to interact with Putin’s war will be a determining factor for EU-China relations”. More recently the European Union head of foreign policy has called Beijing the “key enabler of Russia’s war in Ukraine”.
Brussels has already sanctioned Chinese companies for selling goods that have been used for weapons production in Russia. China continues to pressurise the EU not to enforce trade measures to China’s disadvantage. Today, Xi has pointedly warned the EU not to make wrong strategic decisions about China. But what strategic decisions has he made that would give grounds for greater confidence in China’s bona fides towards Europe?
From a geopolitical perspective, China’s position is entirely clear. Xi values his expedient alliance with Putin in opposition to the US far more even than China’s economic foothold in the EU market. The tense and combative tone of Beijing’s approach to the EU summit contrasts strongly with the atmospherics of Xi’s May Day visit to Moscow this year as Putin’s guest of honour, even as Russia was stepping up its brutal assault on a geographical Europe’s second-largest country.
Xi’s “strategic choice” is not in Europe’s favour. Earlier this month, China’s foreign minister Wang Yi told his European counterpart that “China cannot accept Russia losing its war against Ukraine” since this would enable the US to turn its full attention to contesting with China. This unusually stark formulation wipes out at a stroke China’s carefully cultivated outward pose of peaceful neutrality. But in truth, there is nothing neutral about existing Chinese engagement on the ground.
Earlier this week Ukrainian intelligence announced that it had retrieved two drones, apparently in use as decoys against Ukrainian air defences, which were entirely made of Chinese components. These items join a formidable list of other Chinese materiel found in Ukraine. Russia has recently deployed a Chinese-made laser system, the Silent Hunter, which locks on to, blinds and destroys Ukrainian drones. Chinese-made engines powered Geran-2 combat drones used to grim effect in a recent surge of attacks on Kyiv. The US government assesses that China “provides nearly 80 per cent of the dual-use items Russia needs to sustain the war”.
Xi has made his strategic choice; to back Putin’s attack on Europe on the battlefield. In these circumstances, to claim as China does that it is not a “systemic rival” is absurd. China is an enemy of Europe, as it is of Britain, and the sooner this results in strengthening Nato and individual Western defence policies against China, the better.