[ad_1]
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi didn’t exactly end his week-long European tour with his tail between his legs, but he might have been reprimanded if he ever believed that Beijing could simply conquer Europe by pointing out the extremist rhetoric of the cold war. of Europe’s natural ally. America.
The five-nation tour surely marked the end of an era in which China can now get away with simple homilies on win-win solutions, multilateralism, and non-interference in the internal affairs of others. Pointing to Donald Trump is not enough to win European friends either.
Instead, at each stop on their tour, Wang was reminded by the presence of pro-democracy activists from Hong Kong that China can now pay a political price for imposing new security laws in Hong Kong and suspending elections there, and insisting that the Detained Uighur Muslims simply go through beneficial work experience training.
The question is whether that political price will be transformed into an economic price.
Nathan Law, the self-exiled activist from Hong Kong, traveled to Italy and Germany to put a human face on the repression in Hong Kong and argue that the compromise policy had failed and needed revision.
At times, prolonged encounters with the press in France, Germany and Norway did not get out of the way of the foreign minister, leading him to threaten Norway if the independent Nobel Peace Prize jury awarded an award to Chinese activists from human rights. In Berlin, the most important leg of the visit due to Germany’s leadership, the minister had to defend himself after threatening the Czechs with an unspecified high price after the president of the Czech Senate visited “myopic” Taiwan.
Heiko Maas, the German foreign minister, reviewed the card with Wang, saying such threats were not appropriate, calling for Hong Kong’s legislative elections “quickly and without hindrance” and urging the withdrawal of the new security law.
A reassessment of China has broader security implications. Germany, following the example of France, should shortly publish a strategy for the Indo-Pacific region that will strengthen Berlin’s defense ties with India, Japan and Australia. Maas knows that he is hardly working against the current of public opinion. Polls show that the more the public scrutinizes China’s response to Covid-19, the less they like it.
But the foreign minister will be pleased that no new specific sanctions have been specified, and Huawei remains in contention to provide Germany’s 5G network. You will also have noticed China’s continuing power of attraction. He was received by the President of France, the Prime Minister of Norway, and spoke by phone with the Italian Prime Minister. Only in Holland and Germany did he have to settle for a meeting with his counterpart. In general, Wang was hardly celebrated but not rejected either.
You may have noticed that the European Union’s patience is wearing thin with the unfulfilled promise of equal access to the Chinese market and the end of Chinese state subsidies. Talks on a new investment deal remain stalled and will be raised again at an EU-China virtual summit on September 17. Within the commission there is a growing awareness that connectivity with China may have gone too far.
The pandemic has mostly revealed an over-reliance on external supplies, not only on medical devices but also on strategic minerals such as lithium and cobalt in which China specializes. The conversation in Brussels may not be an American-style disassociation, but diversification is a goal.
China’s gamble will likely remain that the EU needs China more than China needs the EU, but the astute foreign minister will have been left with much to reassess.
