Taiwan’s military “monitored the situation and tasked appropriate forces to respond,” the country’s ministry of national defense said.
Tensions between Beijing and Taipei have remained high ever since Lai Ching-te won Taiwan’s presidential election early this month with a political campaign focused on pushing back against China’s threats against the island.
U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan met with China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Thailand to discuss ongoing geopolitical insecurity, including attacks by Iran-backed Houthi rebels in the Middle East.
Sullivan pressed Wang to use China’s influence with Iran to ease tensions in the Mideast. The officials also agreed to work toward arranging a call between U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
“China has influence over Tehran; they have influence in Iran. And they have the ability to have conversations with Iranian leaders that — that we can’t,” John Kirby, White House National Security Council spokesman, told reporters earlier.
TAIPEI — William Lai, a China skeptic with a track record supporting independence, won the Taiwanese presidential election on Saturday in a result that risks inflaming tensions between Beijing and Washington in the South China Sea.
The election has been billed as the first major global geopolitical watershed of 2024, pitting the U.S. against China in a battle for regional influence. Beijing cast the vote as a choice between war and peace, and stressed the inevitability of the democratic island reunifying with the Communist mainland.
Lai is currently the island’s vice-president and Saturday’s poll represents an unprecedented third successive time in power for the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) — regarded as anathema by Beijing for its insistence upon Taiwan’s sovereign rights and its close relations with the U.S., Europe and other democratic forces. In terms of global security, the fear is Beijing could now ratchet up pressure on the island with warplanes and warships, as it did after then-U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi made a whirlwind visit in 2022.
Well aware of speculation that his victory could trigger heightened tensions with China’s President Xi Jinping, Lai held out an olive branch in his victory address, delivering a measured and cautious call for “exchanges and cooperation with China” on the basis of “dignity and parity.” He vowed to “replace confrontation with dialogue.”
“As president I have an important responsibility to maintain peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait. I will act in accordance with the Republic of China’s constitutional order in a manner that is balanced and maintains the cross-strait status quo,” Lai said, using Taiwan’s official name to please the more China-friendly constituents wary of his nativist Taiwan stance. “At the same time we are also determined to safeguard Taiwan from continuing threats and intimidation from China.”
Beijing’s immediate reaction was dismissive. “The elections of China’s Taiwan region are local elections and China’s internal affairs. Regardless of the result, it will not change the the basic fact that Taiwan is part of China and there is only one China in the world,” said a spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in the U.K.
With almost all the votes counted, Lai won slightly more than 40percent of the vote. The election is a first-past-the-post contest.
Hou Yu-ih from the more China-friendly Kuomintang (KMT) won 33.5 percent of ballots cast. Ko Wen-je, of the Taiwan People’s Party, scored 26.5 percent.
Hou conceded defeat at a KMT rally, saying: “I’m sorry I’ve let you down.”
“I congratulate Lai and Hsiao, but I hope they won’t let the voters down,” he said, referring to Lai and his running mate Bi-khim Hsiao, the vice presidential candidate, who’s a famous figure in Washington, having served as Taiwan’s de facto ambassador to the U.S. “Taiwan needs to be united and cannot be divided.” Hou continued. “Facing the U.S.-China-Taiwan relations, we need to approach them seriously, and leave the people with a stable environment.”
The only good news for Beijing in the results is that the DPP has lost its parliamentary majority, with the KMT vying to take over the speakership. This makes it very hard for Lai, as president, to pass legislation through a hostile parliament, and would certainly clip his wings in terms of antagonism with China.
Taiwan has no formal diplomatic relations with any major power as Beijing treats it as renegade region with no claim to sovereignty. It wields genuine economic heft, however, producing some 90 percent of the world’s most advanced semiconductors.
The only good news for Beijing in the results is a possibility the DPP could lose its parliamentary majority | Yasuyoshi Chiba/AFP via Getty Images
The winner, expected to be formally announced later Saturday, will succeed outgoing Tsai Ing-wen on May 20, amid growing fears of an escalation of tensions between between China and Taiwan. Beijing has been heavily critical of Lai over recent years, as the DPP leader has associated himself with the Taiwanese independence movement.
Indeed Lai went so far as to call himself a “pragmatic worker for Taiwan independence” in 2017, although he has now cooled that language.
Lai is a 64-year-old Harvard graduate and hails from a humble background. His father died in a mining accident when he was not yet one year old; and he was among six children raised by his mother. Before he became vice president, he was mayor of Tainan city and later Taiwan’s premier.
During the campaign, Lai ruled out declaring independence during his tenure, in an apparent bid to reassure Washington, which — alongside European allies — prefers that neither Beijing nor Taipei change the status quo unilaterally.
U.S. President Joe Biden reacted to Lai’s victory with a blunt message on Saturday: “We do not support independence” for Taiwan. The Biden administration has clarified that while it does not back Taiwanese independence, it favors dialogue between Taipei and Beijing and expects differences to be resolved peacefully and without coercion.
However, analysts and diplomats believe Beijing will increase pressure on Taiwan between now and the mid-May inauguration.
Days before the election, Beijing again threatened Taiwan by calling Lai a warmonger. “Lai … will bring Taiwan farther and farther away from peace and prosperity, and closer and closer to war and decay,” Chen Binhua, spokesman for China’s Taiwan Affairs Office, said on Thursday.
Lai is a 64-year-old Harvard graduate and hails from a humble background | Alastair Pike/AFP via Getty Images
China and the U.S. have shown signs of trying to manage the tension ahead of the election. In Washington, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met the visiting Chinese Communist Party’s international department chief Liu Jianchao, a day before the Taiwanese vote.
The U.S. and China also held the first physical military dialogue in four years, with Beijing demanding that the U.S. stop arming Taiwan. The Pentagon’s readout made no mention of how the U.S. responded to that call.
After Saturday’s vote, the U.S. State Department congratulated Lai on his victory and “the Taiwan people for once again demonstrating the strength of their robust democratic system and electoral process,” according to a statement. “The United States is committed to maintaining cross-Strait peace and stability, and the peaceful resolution of differences, free from coercion and pressure,” it said.
U.S.-China relations have seen a relative calm following U.S. President Joe Biden’s summit with China’s Xi in San Francisco in November. Xi, who’s grappling with an ailing economy at home, reportedly told Biden he had no timeline for achieving the ultimate goal of unifying Taiwan — indirectly pushing back at U.S. and Taiwanese officials’ suggestion that an invasion could take place by 2027.
Chinese President Xi Jinping said the country’s reunification with Taiwan was “inevitable” in his New Year’s address on Sunday, just weeks before the self-ruled island holds elections that could reshape relations between the two.
“All Chinese on both sides of the Taiwan Strait should be bound by a common sense of purpose and share in the glory of the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation,” the text adds.
Though Taiwan split from China amid civil war in 1949, Beijing considers the self-ruled island of 23 million its “sacred territory” and hasn’t ruled out the use of force in bringing the island under its control.
China has increasingly ramped up its rhetoric around Taiwan and increased military pressure on the island with regular drills in recent months, while lashing out at the U.S. for approving $300 million in military aid to Taiwan earlier this month. Washington is legally obliged to provide the island with the weapons it needs to defend itself.
Xi’s comments come ahead of Taiwan’s presidential and parliamentary elections on January 13.
The tight race pits Lai Ching-te from the ruling and more independence-leaning Democratic Party against Hou Yu-ih from the opposition Kuomintang, which has historically favored closer ties with China. Lai currently leads in the polls, but both candidates have so far attempted to emphasize peaceful relations with Beijing during the campaign.
BRUSSELS — When EU digital chief Věra Jourová sat down in Beijing with a senior Chinese official in September, her complaint list was as long as the 11-course dinner her host had prepared.
Sore points included Beijing’s disinformation campaigns, electoral interference, state control over Artificial Intelligence development, and ties with Russia.
Predictably, Jourová didn’t get many straight answers from her counterpart, Vice Premier Zhang Guoqing. It’s a nail-biting time to be a politician in China, as major figures such as Qin Gang and Li Shangfu have recently been purged as foreign and defense ministers, and no one wants to be accused of making big concessions to the West.
Then, in a sudden surprise initiative, Zhang said he was ready to offer a goodie to European businesses facing an increasingly hostile political environment in President Xi Jinping’s China. He explained Beijing was willing to move on data flows — a sphere where China has been trying to curb the ability of foreign companies to export data generated within the country. All that data is a goldmine for European business, but China guards it zealously.
A deal on data flows was a big call from Zhang, but can be explained by China’s growing fears about its precarious economy. While security is front-and-center to Chinese policymakers, they also know they have to offer some big carrots to keep foreign investors onside.
“You could feel that something clicked on the spot,” said an EU official with knowledge of the discussion, recalling the heated debates on data over Chinese delicacies like beef in lotus leaves and dim sum.
Although the dinner happened in September, three officials with knowledge of China’s switching tack have only now explained how the change of heart in Beijing came about.
“The vice-premier told her he understood the proposal makes sense, and asked the relevant authorities to take the matter forward,” the first official said. Zhang immediately turned to his junior colleagues from the Cyberspace Administration of China and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. “You had a feeling that that was the moment the big guy gave the go-ahead.”
According to another official, when Trade Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis visited Beijing shortly after Jourová, he received the final confirmation of the changes to the data laws from his counterpart, Vice Premier He Lifeng, an influential economic aide to President Xi Jinping.
Shortly afterward, China agreed to reverse the burden of proof under the relevant laws, allowing most data stored in China to be transferred out of the country unless expressly excluded by the authorities. EU officials, though, cautioned that they’ll still wait to see how Chinese authorities at all levels implement the new provision.
Special gift to Europe
Even though U.S., Japanese and other companies had also been pushing for this kind of measure from Beijing on data, China offered the diplomatic win to the EU.
The European Union Chamber of Commerce, among the first to be notified when Beijing made the legal revision, sent Jourová a congratulatory letter, seen by POLITICO.
China’s Vice Premier Zhang Guoqing | Lintao Zhang/Getty Images
“Make no mistake, China is merely fixing a problem of its own making,” the second official noted. “It’s not an act of benevolence. It’s an act of self-correction.”
Still, that self-correction is far from a given under a nationalistic government facing stiff competition from the U.S.
Increasingly, China’s uncompromising ideological focus is forcing many companies to adjust their business strategies, including by taking their new investments out of China. Indeed, the EU and the rest of the G7 rich democracies are calling on their companies to “de-risk,” as Russia’s war against Ukraine prompts concerns about a possible Chinese invasion of Taiwan.
According to a report issued Wednesday by Penta, a business research group, one in five EU policymakers considers China to be the most pressing issue facing the bloc — while only 16 percent of people say they’re open to working with companies from China, bottom of the list.
It’s against this backdrop that Beijing wants — and needs — to throw some bones to the EU.
“For sure there’s a lot of self-interest for China [to give EU the data deal], where there’s a sharp drop of foreign direct investment which China desperately needs,” the first official said.
European Council President Charles Michel and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen | Kenzo Tribouillard/AFP via Getty Images
Over the past three months, Beijing has welcomed a long line of EU officials in a thaw from the 2021 low point where China’s sanctions on EU politicians and intellectuals were followed by an indefinite freeze of a massive EU-China trade deal, which remains unratified.
Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and her European Council counterpart Charles Michel are expected to attend an EU-China Summit in December and meet Chinese President Xi Jinping.
EU officials should use China’s underperforming economy — most specifically in the real estate sector — as leverage, according to Luisa Santos, deputy director of BusinessEurope, a Brussels-based lobby group, who is currently visiting China.
Speaking before her trip, Santos described the Chinese economy as “not in a great situation,” adding that EU officials should seize this opportunity to convince Beijing to open up further.
“China needs to recognize that what is happening in our bilateral relationship is something that is not sustainable,” she said.
BERLIN — Consider this a final warning for Europe’s car industry.
The IAA motor show gets up and running in Munich on Monday, but rather than purring Mercedes engines and silhouettes of sleek new Porsches wrapped under sheets of crisp satin cloth, the spotlight will be on Tesla and China’s insurgent all-electric brands.
After a few years of sparring, this is where rivals to Europe’s legacy brands start landing punches.
In a rare motor show appearance, Elon Musk’s Tesla is set to unveil an updated version of its best-selling Model 3 in Munich, while Shenzhen-based BYD — the country’s largest electric car company — will have a record six models on show in the IAA exhibition halls.
The show’s organizers say 41 percent of those exhibiting will be Asian companies, which includes big battery-makers from South Korea such as LG and Samsung. The roster of Chinese companies has more than doubled since the last bash in 2021, and that includes market leaders in battery technology with big ambitions for the Continent.
“China has its gaze set on the European market, with the potential to fundamentally change the face of Europe’s industries as we know it,” Sigrid de Vries, Europe’s chief car lobbyist at the ACEA association, wrote in a pre-show open letter. “Propped up by public money and government intent, it is no secret that China’s auto industry now mounts a challenge to the auto industry in Europe and beyond.”
It’s not that the locals aren’t trying.
In Munich, BMW promises an exclusive with its Vision Neue Klasse concept car at its hometown show. And the likes of Volkswagen and Mercedes have new EV models to talk about too. But many of the next-generation vehicles aren’t set to enter commercial production until later this decade.
In the here and now, that puts the competition firmly in the driving seat.
“While the EV transition of legacy OEMs [carmakers] is happening at a moderate pace, Tesla and BYD are gapping away,” said bank UBS in an analysis note shared ahead of the Munich show. “We consider two-thirds of the global car market as addressable by Chinese OEMs, and Europe is the most appealing region, given its size and the clear EV roadmap.”
The alarming arrival of China, a global leader in batteries, is nothing new in European automotive circles; its brands have been building beachheads in richer continental markets with high EV penetration since the Paris motor show in 2022. But the invasion is on the verge of turning into a rout.
Data from Schmidt Automotive Research, covering 18 markets across Western Europe, shows roughly one in 10 new battery electric vehicles sold in July was from a Chinese brand, with rumors that at least one company will soon invest in a local production site.
“If Paris wasn’t a wake-up call, Munich certainly is,” said Matthias Schmidt, an automotive analyst.
Mass assault
Tesla has already snagged the top two spots in European EV sales with its Model Y and Model 3, but no company has yet cracked the sub-$30,000 EV market. China could do that. In a cost comparison study, UBS says it will be “near-impossible” for a legacy carmaker to compete with any Chinese model even if it is built inside the EU.
That’s because of structural advantages companies like BYD have in sourcing batteries and components, UBS said.
While BYD sold just 1,900 units across Western Europe in July, Schmidt expects the company to accelerate its sales push through the second half of the year with the launch of new models in Munich, including the new Seal SUV variant. The company “is truly dedicated to introducing innovative and high-tech eco-friendly cars to the European market,” Michael Shu, BYD’s managing director for Europe, said in a statement.
The disruption by new market entrants is already playing havoc with the industry’s business model.
Carmakers have traditionally planned product launches over seven-year cycles of development and sales, giving them plenty of time to earn fat profits from each generation of combustion engine technology.
But the pace of innovation in batteries and digital technologies is upending that, and turning cars, at least during this rapid period of innovation, into fast moving consumer goods similar to mobile phones with models quickly going out of date, said Martin Benecke from S&P Global Mobility.
At the IAA in Munich, Tesla plans to unveil changes to its Model 3 that will see it deliver more range from a charge.
That puts pressure on Europe’s legacy carmakers to compete, and they may end up falling short.
“One example is the ID.3 from VW,” said Benecke. “It’s quite fresh but it will stay for three or four years, even though it’s looking quite old already. There has been a face lift, but to compete [against the Chinese] with the same vehicle will be tough.”
An annual meeting of Volkswagen shareholders in Berlin in May was disrupted by protesters, one of whom hurled the creamy confection at the assembled executives, forcing Chairman Hans DieterPötsch to flinch out of the way.
Among the subjects of their ire: A car plant some 3,500 miles away in the Chinese region of Xinjiang, where Beijing has carried out a campaign of mass detention, reeducation and forced labor that the United States has described as genocide of the Uyghur ethnic minority.
One topless woman in the room waved a banner with the words “End Uyghur Forced Labor” before the protesters were escorted away. Outside, other activists held up signs saying “Camps, forced labor, family separations: VW major shareholders in Lower Saxony must not remain silent about crimes against Uyghurs.”
Volkswagen denies it has ever utilized forced labor in Xinjiang. But it has been less willing to grapple with the broader accusation: That by maintaining the facility at the request of Beijing, the company — and by extension the German government, which supported the carmaker’s investments in China — is providing political cover for crimes against humanity.
“Even if there is no forced labor, it is such a big symbol for the Chinese government to show the world that they bring prosperity to the region,” said Eva Stocker, senior project officer from the World Uyghur Congress, an advocacy group for Uyghur rights and self-determination. “But we see it as a genocide.”
The rising criticism over Volkswagen’s presence in Xinjiang has been accompanied by a shifting in the political and economic winds. Russia’s war on Ukraine has kicked off a broader conversation about strategic dependency, with officials in Brussels and Washington calling for “de-risking” with regard to Beijing. At the same time, worries about climate change are upending the automobile market, with Chinese electric carmakers preparing to challenge legacy brands in Europe on their own soil.
This all poses a conundrum for Volkswagen, which led the Western charge into the Chinese market in the 1980s and remains dependent on business there for 15 percent of its pretax profit and 37 percent of its new car sales last year.
China’s treatment of Uyghurs is unlikely to be central to the discussions as German Chancellor Olaf Scholz hosts a Chinese delegation led by Prime Minister Li Qiang this week. But Volkswagen’s relationship to China, and the human rights abuses being carried out there, is illustrative of Berlin’s increasingly uncomfortable dependency on Beijing — and the challenges Germany is likely to face as the West seeks to turn de-risking from a slogan into action.
Slave labor
Potential complicity in genocide is a charge to which one might expect Volkswagen to be sensitive. When the company was founded in 1937 by the national labor organization of the Nazi Party, it used concentration camp prisoners as slave labor. Hundreds of infants kept at a children’s home run by Volkswagen were starved to death.
During the Holocaust, the Nazis sent their perceived enemies to extermination camps. In Xinjiang, human rights groups have documented mass incarceration, forced sterilization, the suppression of religious practices, including the burning of mosques, and the separation of hundreds of thousands of schoolchildren from their parents. Many believe these practices meet the definition of genocide as acts intended “to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group.”
The United States government has denounced human rights abuses in Xinjiang as genocide, as have national legislatures in France, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Lithuania and Canada. The German Bundestag has not, though Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock has called for a ban on goods made with forced labor and for investigations into China’s actions in Xinjiang.
Volkswagen denies it has ever utilized forced labor in Xinjiang | Freddy Chan/EPA via EFE
Investigative journalists have found traces of forced labor camps within 15 miles of Volkswagen’s Xinjiang plant, which is a joint venture initiative with SAIC Motor, the largest state-owned automobile manufacturer in China. As POLITICO and other media reported, the use of forced labor was so rampant in the region that schoolchildren were organized by schools to carry out manual labor.
“By the plant, there are seven concentration camps … so this is what Volkswagen cannot deny, but they say they are not connected with them,” Erkin Zunun, the chief coordinator of the World Uyghur Congress based in Munich, said. “Nobody can say 100 percent there is no connection to forced labor.”
Ralf Brandstätter, the head of Volkswagen’s China operations, said after a visit to the Xinjiang plant in March that he’d found no evidence of forced labor. “I can talk to people and draw my conclusions. I can try and verify the facts [from joint venture partner SAIC], and that’s what I did,” Brandstätter said. “I didn’t find any contradictions,” he added, citing seven staffers he’d spoken to via translators.
Over the past few years, European diplomats based in China have made repeated inquiries into Volkswagen’s presence in Xinjiang, according to three diplomats granted anonymity to speak frankly about their exchanges. Time and again, they received the same answer. “They always insist there’s no forced labor, and that the minorities they hire in the local plant are not forced labor,” one of them said. “They don’t care what happens outside the factory.”
Volkswagen rejected the accusation that by being in Xinjiang, the company is complicit in the human rights violations being perpetrated there. “Will something change if Volkswagen leaves?” said a Volkswagen spokesperson speaking on condition of anonymity. “We have doubts about this.”
The spokesperson said the company pays its employees at the plant on average 30 percent more than other automakers in the region and has had practically no staff turnover in recent years. “We are offering around 250 workers and their families a good … living in the region,” the spokesperson said.
‘Devil’s agreement’
On its own, Volkswagen’s investment in Xinjiang — and the company’s decision to stay there despite human rights violations in the area — makes little reputational or economic sense.
Since the COVID shutdowns, the plant hasn’t been used for vehicle assembly or production, but rather as a sorting center for cars heading to local dealerships. Last year, Volkswagen says some 10,000 cars — an average of less than 28 a day — were cleared through the facility, with plans to increase this over the next few years. Staff at the site carry out water resistance checks, quality controls and assess driver assistance systems, a spokesperson said.
The investment has to be considered in the broader context of Volkswagen’s engagement with Beijing. Unrestricted access to the Chinese market is mission-critical for all German automakers, but for Volkswagen, it’s what makes it a global heavyweight brand. Nearly 40 percent of Volkswagen’s global car sales were in China last year, up from 31 percent a decade ago, according to data from the Center for Automotive Management in Cologne.
According to a senior Western diplomat, Volkswagen’s Xinjiang presence is part of a “devil’s agreement” that the Chinese government imposed on the German car company 15 years ago. Under the deal, Volkswagen had to agree to build a new factory in Xinjiang — which was and has remained an economic backwater — in return for permission for a dozen new plants in the economically vibrant eastern coastal area, as well as the booming central provinces.
“The misleading assumption is that we were forced, that we opened the plant as a push from the government in Beijing,” said the Volkswagen spokesperson. “That isn’t true. It was part of a greater plan — the Go West strategy,” referring to the company’s ambitions to expand into less developed parts of China.
Today, pulling out would risk jeopardizing relations with Beijing, as China often treats expressions of concern about human rights violations in Xinjiang as endorsements of what it sees as U.S. pressure on the country.
The presentation of the new Golf GTI at the Shanghai car show in 2021 | Hector Retamal/AFP via Getty Images
Volkswagen is determined to live with its contractual obligation with SAIC to stay in Xinjiang at least until 2030, Volkswagen chief lobbyist Thomas Steg told journalists in March. “This plant is owned and operated by a non-controlled joint venture, all the decisions have to be taken unanimously,” the company spokesperson said.
In a written statement, Volkswagen Group said it “stands firmly against” forced labor, adding it “takes its responsibility for human rights very seriously in all regions of the world, including China.”
“In a globalized world, we can only really strengthen Germany as a business location if we maintain and further develop our relations with major economic players such as China,” it said.
Green evolution
While Volkswagen has traditionally enjoyed strong support from Berlin for its investments in China, the political winds back home have started to shift.
The main push comes from the Green Party, a junior partner in Germany’s coalition government, and its calls for “values-driven” diplomacy. In May 2022, the German Economy Ministry, led by Green Party heavyweight Robert Habeck, announced it would stop all investment guarantee schemes for companies looking to invest in the Xinjiang region of China due to the deteriorating human rights situation.
Volkswagen’s investment guarantees were not extended because the interministerial committee that decides on them determined that the company “has too little control and knowledge … within the joint venture to adequately counter the human rights risks,” a German official said.
Chinese carmakers with cheaper battery technology are making a play for Europe | Tobias Schwarz/AFP via Getty Images
Foreign Minister Baerbock has also taken a tougher line, warning companies that they won’t be bailed out with taxpayers’ money if “things go wrong” in other parts of the world. Her stance has not gone unnoticed by Beijing. When Baerbock visited China in April, her counterpart Qin Gang warned Berlin it should be thinking about its business interests.
“Both sides should maintain and advance existing cooperation, create a favorable environment and stable expectations for cooperation between enterprises of the two countries, and provide stronger growth drivers for the global economy,” Qin said.
Germany’s first National Security Strategy, released last week, criticizes China for disregarding human rights, although the document does not go further into detail. Berlin also plans to release a dedicated China strategy in July.
For the automaker, the Green Party’s China policy has become a headache. “It’s crazy what Habeck and Baerbock are doing at the moment … [They] just try to bring confrontation to the world,” said Ferdinand Dudenhöffer, director of Center for Automotive Research, an industry group with close ties to Volkswagen and to Chinese carmakers. “It’s really crazy.”
Dudenhöffer insisted the German carmaker had done everything within its capacity to ensure good labor standards in the Xinjiang plant. He didn’t believe the company had broached with Beijing the possibility of the plant’s closure or the transfer of its ownership to its Chinese partners. “I think they discussed it internally, but … if you start to talk about that issue [with the Chinese], then you start to go into opposition with the most important market you have in the world,” he said.
The EV threat
The irony is that Volkswagen’s morally expensive bet may not even pay off.
After enjoying decades of market leadership, the German auto giant is struggling to cope with the impending demise of the combustion engine and is facing unprecedented challenges from Chinese-made electric vehicles, which are now set to become the “greatest risk” facing European carmakers, according to a report by Allianz Trade.
Even as Volkswagen doubles down on the Chinese market, Chinese carmakers with cheaper battery technology are making a play for Europe, with brands like BYD, Great Wall, Nio and Xpeng launching across the Continent.
While electric vehicles only make up around 5 percent of European sales, EU regulators have mandated a phaseout of the combustion engine by 2035. One analysis predicts Chinese imports could make up nearly a fifth of all European sales by 2025 — bad news for local legacy brands.
Even if Volkswagen does find a way to hold out at home, its investments in China could be at risk if Europe raises trade barriers against Chinese vehicles, as France has been calling for. Such a move would almost certainly lead to reciprocal action from Beijing, which has not shied away from using its regulatory muscles to push its diplomatic interests.
In 2017, for example, when South Korea sought to buy a missile defense system from the U.S. in order to stave off the threat from North Korea, Beijing vocally opposed the move, and sales of Hyundai and Kia models subsequently plummeted, sparking rows with dealerships and plant closures.
Under President Xi Jinping, China has also sought to diminish the market share of foreign companies. In telecoms, for example, European players like Ericsson and Nokia have been crowded out by homegrown heavyweights Huawei and ZTE. China may have needed Western companies to jump-start its industrial development, but with Xi seeking to present China as an alternative to the West, that utility is quickly fading.
In other words, for Volkswagen’s executives, cake-throwing protesters may be the least of their worries.
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Stuart Lau , Joshua Posaner and Hans von der Burchard
Europe cannot ignore Taiwan’s desire for “better relations” if EU countries such as Germany are keen to acquire advanced microchip-making technologies from the island, Taiwanese Foreign Minister Joseph Wu said.
Speaking to POLITICO and other media on his trip to Europe, Wu questioned the enticements Europe is offering TSMC when asked why the world-leading chipmaking giant based in Taiwan has still not come to a decision to build a new plant in Germany.
“If Europe has provided very positive incentive, and also speak with the TSMC in a way that will make the TSMC feel comfortable, that their investment in Europe is going to produce very positive results … their investment in Europe is certainly not going to be stopped by the government,” Wu said.
“Even though we are not selfish in stopping the TSMC, for making investment in other countries, we certainly hope that other countries who want to attract TSMC to make investment can also think about the situation Taiwan is in, or TSMC’s position in Taiwan, and the position Taiwan is seeing in this geo-strategical landscape,” he said.
In contrast, Wu called Japan and the U.S. — where TSMC plants will be completed next year — a “like-minded partner” and “a very good partner of Taiwan,” respectively.
“I think this is some philosophical thinking, rather than government policy of putting conditions on TSMC making investment in other [countries],” Wu said. “That philosophical issue is that when a country is in shortage of computer chips, they will ask Taiwan, ‘you should do this, and you should do that’ — but they don’t seem to be thinking about a broader picture of better relations with Taiwan, economic or otherwise.”
Wu’s comments are a pointed though veiled criticism aimed at Germany.
At the height of the coronavirus pandemic in 2021, then-German Economy Minister Peter Altmaier asked his Taiwanese counterpart, Wang Mei-hua, to intervene regarding TSMC’s reduced supply to the German auto industry, according to a letter reported by Reuters. “I would be pleased if you could take on this matter and underline the importance of additional semiconductor capacities for the German automotive industry to TSMC,” said the letter written by Altmaier, who was a key member of Angela Merkel’s government which put a priority on trade with China.
Deterring China
One of Wu’s main missions in Europe — in a trip that took him to Prague, Brussels and Milan — was to shore up diplomatic support for Taiwan among European leaders.
He welcomed the EU’s repeated calls on Beijing to maintain the status quo in the Taiwan Strait. “China might also sense that it might come down with some economic price for their possible aggression against Taiwan, so sanction or other types of economic means against China, and I think the European countries have been discussing about that as well,” he said.
Even if the EU has taken a more critical view of China as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, which began in China, as well as Beijing’s stance on Russia’s war against Ukraine, Taiwan still faces challenges while engaging with Europe.
On trade, the European Commission has been reluctant to begin negotiations for a bilateral investment agreement (BIA) with Taiwan, apparently out of concern about retaliation from Beijing.
Taiwanese Foreign Minister Joseph Wu traveled to Europe to shore up diplomatic support from European leaders | Vladimir Simicek/AFP via Getty Images
“We are very concerned that the BIA between Taiwan and EU seems to be called as a hostage to the stalling CAI negotiations,” Wu said, referring to the comprehensive agreement on investment between the EU and China. “But if you look at the linkage — close linkage — between Taiwan and the EU, in economic sense, I think EU needs to find an alternative to strengthen the bilateral economic or trade relations, rather than get bogged down by the CAI which is not going anywhere,” he said.
“We hope we can persuade the EU leadership to think about this in a positive way,” Wu added.
Due to diplomatic protocol under which all EU member countries recognize the “one China” policy, the Taiwanese officials requested that POLITICO and the other media not disclose the location where the interview was conducted. Nor could Wu say which EU officials he met with, or whether he planned to have meetings at NATO, also based in Brussels. (One of the few EU figures confirming Wu’s presence in Brussels was European Parliament Vice President Nicola Beer, who tweeted about their meeting and called Taiwan a “firm member of the democratic family.”)
Despite the EU’s lack of public acknowledgment of his visit — as well as the European public’s preference of “staying neutral” in the event of a U.S.-China conflict over Taiwan — Wu still has high hopes that the bloc’s attitude would change.
“I don’t think morally, any sensible country, any sensible leader can stay neutral and say, ‘No, we’re not going to pay any attention to [the] atrocity,'” he said, referring to potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan.
“And I think the same can apply to the situation between the U.S. and China. If China initiated any aggression against other countries, in killing innocent people, violating international laws, causing atrocities and destructions, and killing innocent people, and all that, and the United States is trying to help, I don’t think the European countries can say that it’s a matter … between the U.S. and China,” Wu said.
“When the international community discuss about the major international principles,” he said, “I think it’s going to be very hard for Europe to say that ‘I don’t care’.”
SINGAPORE — China put European patience to the test on Saturday, with a seasoned Chinese diplomat attributing Russia’s war on Ukraine to a failed security architecture in Europe.
It fell to Dutch Defense Minister Kajsa Ollongren to challenge that very Chinese interpretation.
“I was actually a little bit surprised to hear it,” Ollongren told POLITICO in an interview moments after she made an impromptu rebuttal of ex-ambassador Cui Tiankai on a panel at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore. “It’s very, very false.”
Cui, a former envoy to the U.S. and unofficially an adviser to the Chinese delegation at this top Asian security forum, told the event on Saturday that Europe had showed little success in ensuring the Continent’s security, and suggested that the other nations at the forum should take a lesson from China and Asia instead.
“We used to look to Europe, for their experience in regional integration. But nowadays, maybe people in Europe instead could look to us,” Cui told the gathering. “We don’t impose our ways on you, but maybe you can learn something useful from our experience, from our success,” he said.
“And our region also should learn something very important — from your lack of success. I don’t want to use the word ‘failure,’ [so] a lack of success,” said Cui, who sat next to Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov on the panel.
“We will continue with our Asian ways of managing our security situation and managing all the issues,” Cui said. “We don’t need an Asian NATO. We’ll don’t want to see expansion of NATO’s role in our region.”
While the Ukrainian minister steered clear of criticizing Beijing — saying only that Ukraine needed to win the war, not negotiate — Ollongren hit back at Cui’s assertion.
“There was a suggestion by the ambassador that Europe has not succeeded in managing its security very well, because of the war in Ukraine. Of course, I understand there’s a war in Ukraine — but I think it’s not the result of mismanaging our security situation in Europe. It’s the result of not respecting the way we want to manage security in Europe,” the Dutch minister said.
“I think also, there is no lack of respect for China or lack of respect to the culture of China in Europe; we have very high respect for that,” she said.
Ollongren, whose country has taken an increasingly critical stance on China over ties with Russia and tech advancement in military fields, added after the panel that what Cui had presented was a “false perception of the situation.”
“You cannot blame Europe or European countries for Russia’s illegally invading Ukraine,” she said.
Ollongren added that since Cui is no longer an ambassador, she would wait for Chinese Defense Minister Li Shangfu to spell out the official position in his keynote address on Sunday.
HIROSHIMA, Japan — As the leaders of the Group of Seven gather for their annual summit in Japan this week, three world-changing conflicts — past, present and potential — will converge.
The atomic bomb that ended World War II destroyed much of the city of Hiroshima, where the leaders will meet. Today, Russia’s war in Ukraine is costing thousands of lives and billions of dollars as it drags on. And then there’s the risk of another horrifying catastrophe to come, as China threatens Taiwan.
And it’s over China where the alliance may come unstuck.
For hawks like the U.S. and Japan, the summit beginning Friday offers a timely opportunity to make the case to Europe’s leaders directly that it’s time to get off the fence when it comes to confronting China.
“This G7 Summit will be an appropriate venue to also discuss security issues and our security cooperation not only in Europe, but also in the Indo-Pacific region,” Noriyuki Shikata, cabinet secretary at the Japanese prime minister’s office, told POLITICO.
The U.S. is betting on at least the appearance of common ground with allies about the People’s Republic of China. Ahead of the summit, U.S. National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby told reporters: “You can expect to hear at the end of those discussions that all the G7 leaders are of a common mind about how to deal with the challenges that the PRC presents.”
But — beyond the inevitably bland diplomatic lines of a summit communique — getting consensus on meaningful security measures for the Indo-Pacific region will be hard, even in the symbolic setting of Hiroshima.
East Asia is again descending into a state of growing security risks and military imbalance, this time due to China’s aggressive moves against Taiwan and the South China Sea.
“There’s a feeling that there’s a little bit of a gap, perhaps, between where the Europeans are on some China issues and where the U.S. is,” said Zack Cooper, former aide to the U.S. National Security Council and a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
Chief among the points of tension is how far to go in trying to stop a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, which could trigger world war and wreck the global economy. The self-governing island, which Beijing claims as its own, provides most of the world’s advanced computer chips that are vital to the tech and defense industries. Not all European governments are convinced it’s something they need to prioritize. “It’s going to be a continuing challenge,” Cooper said.
Picking friends
NATO is set to extend its footprint in Asia and set up a new liaison office in Tokyo to better coordinate with regional partners, such as Australia, South Korea and New Zealand.
However, French President Emmanuel Macron has repeatedly called on NATO to focus only on the Euro-Atlantic theater, saying Asia — China — is not covered geographically. He also triggered an outcry with recent comments to POLITICO, suggesting that Taiwan’s security was not Europe’s fight, and that the EU should not automatically follow America’s lead.
Justin Trudeau comes to the G7 following months of intelligence leaks that have painted his government as weak on foreign interference | Yuchi Yamazaki/AFP via Getty Images
Macron’s stance sets France — which is the EU’s biggest military power — apart from the U.S. and Japan, and also from the U.K., where Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is expected to announce a new security deal with Japan during his visit.
“Ukraine today could be East Asia tomorrow,” Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said last year, not long after Russia’s full-scale invasion began. Last week, Japan’s Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi made an even more explicit warning in a speech made to his 27 EU counterparts in Sweden.
“China is continuing and intensifying its unilateral attempts to change the status quo by force in the East and South China Seas. China is also increasing its military activities around Taiwan,” Hayashi said. “In addition, China and Russia are strengthening their military collaboration, including joint flights of their bombers and joint naval exercises in the vicinity of Japan.”
The Chinese-Russian ties will be part of the G7 leaders’ discussions, according to two officials involved in the process, who spoke on condition of anonymity because summit preparations are not public. While the Chinese authorities stop short of openly arming Russia in its war against Ukraine, a long-term strategic partnership between Beijing and Moscow is unshakable for President Xi Jinping.
G7 countries such as the U.S. and Japan are expected to raise the need to sanction countries that work around Western trade restrictions on Russia, according to the officials. Chinese companies found to be selling dual use goods to Russia would be a top focus.
Bully tactics
China’s willingness to throw around its economic weight is one area where there’s likely to be more unity between G7 allies.
The need to fight back against economic coercion will take center stage at the summit. The EU, U.S., Canada and Japan are going to rally around calls to combat China’s use of its economic power to bully smaller economies that act against its political interests.
“The sense of urgency and unity is a force factor in and of itself. For example, never before has the G7 addressed economic coercion,” Rahm Emanuel, the U.S. ambassador to Japan, told POLITICO.
“When measured against the recent past, the G7 and EU are more strategically aligned in key economic and military matters,” added Emanuel, who served as chief of staff to former U.S. President Barack Obama.
When it comes to the European view, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is clear that the bloc is “competing with China” and will need to up its game. “We will reduce strategic dependencies — we have learned the lessons of the last year,” she said in a press conference ahead of the trip.
Justin Trudeau, the Canadian prime minister, comes to the G7 following months of intelligence leaks that have painted his government as weak on foreign interference, specifically from China. He’ll be carrying Canada’s message that it can be a safe, non-authoritarian alternative to Russia and China for supplying critical minerals and energy, including nuclear power.
Despite the toughening rhetoric on China, what still unites the G7 countries is an eagerness not to shut the door on talks with Beijing.
US President Joe Biden arrives to attend the G7 Summit in Hiroshima on May 18, 2023 | Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images
The Biden administration has for months been seeking to secure a visit to China for top Cabinet members, such as Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, held eight hours of talks with the Chinese Communist Party’s foreign policy chief, Wang Yi, this month.
Just before he left for Japan on Wednesday, U.S. President Joe Biden was asked whether his last-minute decision to truncate his trip abroad could be seen as “almost a win for China.” Instead of staying in the region for a summit of the Quad — Japan, India, the U.S. and Australia — Biden plans to return to Washington Sunday to deal with domestic issues.
The president downplayed the move as something China could use to its advantage, noting he will still meet with Quad nation leaders in Japan. “We get a chance to talk separately at the meeting,” he said
Then, Biden was asked whether he has plans to speak with the Chinese president soon.
“Whether it’s soon or not, we will be meeting,” he said, before leaving the room.
Cristina Gallardo in London and Zi-Ann Lum in Ottawa contributed reporting.
HIROSHIMA, Japan — China on Saturday faced a strong pushback from the Group of Seven countries over its stances on Russia, Taiwan, trade bullying, economic monopoly and domestic interference, with the G7 leaders’ statement reflecting a broad convergence of the U.S., Europe and Japan on a need to change tack.
Issued around the time of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s arrival in Hiroshima, where the summit is taking place, the statement by leaders of the G7 wealthy democracies asked Beijing to do more to stop Russia’s war on Ukraine.
“We call on China to press Russia to stop its military aggression, and immediately, completely and unconditionally withdraw its troops from Ukraine,” the leaders said in the statement. “We encourage China to support a comprehensive, just and lasting peace based on territorial integrity and the principles and purposes of the U.N. Charter, including through its direct dialogue with Ukraine.”
Crucially, the U.S. and Europe — the two main constituents of the G7 — came round to a common set of language on China. For France and Germany, in particular, their focus on a conciliatory attitude to China was reflected in the final statement, which began the China section by stating “We stand prepared to build constructive and stable relations with China.”
The G7’s repeated emphasis of “de-risking, not decoupling” is a nod to the EU approach to China, as European member countries are wary of completely cutting off business ties with Beijing.
The language on Taiwan remained the same compared with recent statements. “We reaffirm the importance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait as indispensable to security and prosperity in the international community,” the statement said, adding there’s “no change in the basic positions” in terms of the one China policies.
Domestic interference
Apart from Russia, another new element this year is the mention of domestic interference — which human rights groups say is a reflection of the growing concern about China’s “overseas police stations” in other countries. “We call on China … not to conduct interference activities aimed at undermining the security and safety of our communities, the integrity of our democratic institutions and our economic prosperity,” the leaders said in their statement, citing the Vienna Convention which regulates diplomatic affairs.
On global economics, both sides of the Atlantic and Japan now see the need to fundamentally change the overall dynamic of economic globalization, placing security at the front of policy considerations.
“Our policy approaches are not designed to harm China nor do we seek to thwart China’s economic progress and development. A growing China that plays by international rules would be of global interest,” the G7 leaders said in the statement.
“We are not decoupling or turning inwards. At the same time, we recognize that economic resilience requires de-risking and diversifying. We will take steps, individually and collectively, to invest in our own economic vibrancy. We will reduce excessive dependencies in our critical supply chains,” they said.
One central theme is economic coercion, where China has punished a wide range of countries — from Japan and Australia to Lithuania and South Korea — over the decade when political disagreements arose.
The G7 countries launched a new “coordination platform on economic coercion” to “increase our collective assessment, preparedness, deterrence and response to economic coercion,” according to the statement. They also plan to coordinate with other partners to further the work on this.
For France, the focus on a conciliatory attitude to China was reflected in the final statement, which began by stating “We stand prepared to build constructive and stable relations with China” | Pool phot by Stefan Rousseau/Getty Images
The joint call for diverse sources of critical minerals, while stopping short of naming China, is widely seen as targeted against the Asian superpower that controls, for instance, 70 percent of global rare earths output. The G7 countries “support open, fair, transparent, secure, diverse, sustainable, traceable, rules and market-based trade in critical minerals” and “oppose market-distorting practices and monopolistic policies on critical minerals,” according to the statement.
They also vow to deliver the goal of mobilizing up to $600 billion in financing for quality infrastructure through the Partnership for Global Infrastructure Investment, a rival to China’s Belt and Road initiative. “We will mobilize the private sector for accelerated action to this end,” they said.
In a bilateral in Hiroshima, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and French President Emmanuel Macron “welcomed the strong unity of purpose at the G7 on … our collective approach to the economic threat posed by China,” a spokesperson for Sunak’s office said.
BRUSSELS — The EU’s high command is calling on European governments to keep talking to China amid deepening tensions between Washington and Beijing.
The European Union’s diplomatic arm wants member countries to “be prepared” for a potentially critical escalation in the crisis over Taiwan, warning that a military conflict would upend the vital supply of microchips to Europe.
But while there’s a need to reduce risks to Europe, it may not seal itself off from China, according to an internal document drafted by the European External Action Service and seen by POLITICO.
The document, which will be discussed by the bloc’s foreign ministers at a gathering in Stockholm on Friday, comes at a crucial time for the EU as it navigates an increasingly complex relationship with China. The U.S. is doubling down on its hawkish stance toward Beijing, while European leaders have not yet agreed on a unified approach.
The paper triggered immediate backlash from some of Europe’s more hawkish governments. “With all possible alarm lights flashing, we seem to prefer hitting a snooze button again,” one senior EU diplomat said on condition of anonymity in order to discuss sensitive issues.
In the document, prepared by the EU executive’s diplomatic officials, the bloc’s 27 member countries are urged to seize “a window of opportunity” to reduce the risk of China’s growing influence over economic and security matters.
A chance remains for Europe to speak directly to President Xi Jinping’s government, the paper says. “China and Europe cannot become more foreign to each other. Otherwise there is a risk that misunderstandings will grow and spread to other areas,” according to the draft.
“Systemic rivalry may feature in almost all areas of engagement. But this must not deter the EU from maintaining open channels of communication and seeking constructive cooperation with China […] Such cooperation can serve to break through a growing self-induced isolation of the Chinese leadership but most importantly should advance the EU’s core interests,” the paper continued.
Friday’s debate at an informal meeting of foreign ministers in Sweden will fire the starting gun on a discussion over the EU’s relationship with China that is expected to dominate policymaking in the coming months, with a more comprehensive debate expected at an EU leaders’ summit in Brussels this June.
De-risking Beijing
The paper calls on member countries to speed up plans for “de-risking” and reducing overdependence on China.
“De-risking can ensure predictability and transparency in our economic and trade relations, while promoting a secure, rules-based approach,” the paper says.
The call for de-risking comes as Beijing appears increasingly impatient with the narrative that it poses a threat to the West. Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang, speaking in Berlin this week, criticized European politicians for attempting to “get rid of China” in the name of de-risking.
The paper also tackles the politically sensitive issue of Taiwan, with ministers due to discuss this issue as well on Friday. French President Emmanuel Macron told POLITICO in an interview last month that Europe should avoid getting dragged into a confrontation between China and the U.S. over the self-governing island, which Beijing claims as its own.
On Taiwan, the paper says: “The EU is […] adamant that any unilateral change of the status quo and use of force could have massive economic, political and security consequences, at global level, especially considering Taiwan’s primary role as supplier of the most advanced semiconductors.”
The document continues: “The EU needs to be prepared for scenarios in which tensions increase significantly. The risk of escalation in the Taiwan Strait clearly shows the necessity to work with partners to deter the erosion of the status quo in the interest of all.”
Some 90 percent of advanced semiconductors imported into the EU come from Taiwan, according to the bloc’s own estimates.
Taiwan’s semiconductor giant TSMC has been under pressure to relocate some of its manufacturing capabilities, but so far it has only moved in the direction of Taiwan’s two presumed security providers — the U.S. and Japan.
On Ukraine, the EU is not impressed with China’s latest diplomatic show, marked by President Xi Jinping’s belated first call with his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
“China’s ’12-point position paper on the Ukraine Crisis’ […] confirms its firmly pro-Russian stance,” the document said. “Direct dialogue between China and Ukraine would be the best opportunity for China to contribute to a fair political settlement,” it continued.
EU member countries should keep warning Beijing to refrain from supporting Russia, including by circumventing sanctions, the same paper added.
The paper also casts gloom on the outlook for China’s domestic development, saying the Asian superpower “is likely to face unprecedented economic and political challenges internally” due to the deceleration of economic growth and demographic change.
BRUSSELS — Just when you thought Europe’s China policy could not be more disunited, the two most powerful countries of the European Union are now also at odds over whether to revive a moribund investment agreement with the authoritarian superpower.
For France, resuscitating the so-called EU-China Comprehensive Agreement on Investment (CAI) is “less urgent” and “just not practicable,” according to French President Emmanuel Macron.
Meanwhile, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is in favor of “reactivating” the agreement, which stalled soon after it was announced in late 2020 after Beijing imposed sanctions on several members of the European Parliament for criticizing human rights violations.
Speaking to POLITICO aboard his presidential plane during a visit to China earlier this month, Macron said he and Chinese leader Xi Jinping discussed the CAI, “but just a little bit.”
“I was very blunt with President Xi, I was very honest, as far as this is a European process — all the institutions need to be involved, and there is no chance to see any progress on this agreement as long as we have members of the European Parliament sanctioned by China,” Macron told POLITICO in English.
Beijing has proved skilled at preventing the EU from developing a unified China policy, using threats ranging from potential bans on French and Spanish wine to warnings that China will buy American Boeing instead of French Airbus planes.
Disagreement over the CAI is only one further example of divergence over China policy in Europe, where Beijing has expertly courted various countries and played them against each other in games of divide-and-rule over the past decade.
Merkel sought to seal the deal and ingratiate herself with Beijing before Washington could apply pressure to block it, causing tension with the incoming administration of U.S. President Joe Biden.
Germany has long been the most vocal cheerleader for the CAI due to its scale of manufacturing investments in China, particularly in the car-making and chemicals sectors.
The CAI would have made it marginally easier for European companies to invest in China and protect their intellectual property there. But critics decried weak worker protections and questioned to what degree it could be enforced.
Xi Jinping during Macron’s visit to Beijing | Ludovic Marin/AFP via Getty Images
Soon after the agreement was announced, Beijing imposed sanctions on several European parliamentarians in retaliation for their criticism of human rights abuses in the restive region of Xinjiang.
The deal, which requires ratification by the European parliament, went into political deep freeze.
Scholz, who at times seems to mimic the more popular Merkel, would like to take CAI “out of the freezer” — but has cautioned that “this must be done with care” to avoid political pitfalls, according to a person he briefed directly but who was not authorized to comment publicly.
“It is surprising Scholz still thinks this is a good idea, despite the vastly changed context from a couple of years ago,” said one senior EU official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to freely discuss sensitive diplomatic issues.
EU branches split
Not only are EU countries divided on how to approach CAI — there’s also a rift among institutions in Brussels.
With its members sanctioned, the European Parliament is certain to reject any fresh attempt to ratify the CAI.
But like Scholz, European Council President Charles Michel also hopes to resuscitate the deal. He has discussed this with Chinese communist leaders, including during his solo visit to Beijing late last year, according to a senior EU official familiar with the matter who was not authorized to speak publicly.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, however, has stymied Michel’s attempts to place the agreement back on the agenda in Brussels. Von der Leyen is far more skeptical of engaging with China, citing increasing aggression abroad and repression at home.
Von der Leyen accompanied Macron on part of his China trip earlier this month, but said of her brief meeting with Xi Jinping and other Chinese officials that the topic of CAI “did not come up.” She has publicly argued that the deal needs to be “reassessed” in light of deteriorating relations between Beijing and the West.
Meanwhile, Chinese officials have made overtures to Michel and other sympathetic European leaders, suggesting China could unilaterally lift its sanctions on members of the European Parliament — but only with a “guarantee” the CAI would eventually be ratified.
A spokesperson for Michel said an informal meeting of EU foreign ministers will discuss EU-China relations on May 12. “Following that discussion we will then assess when the topic of China is again put on the table of the European Council,” he said.
During the same interview with POLITICO, Macron caused consternation in Western capitals when he said Europe should not follow America, but instead avoid confronting China over its stated goal of seizing the democratic island of Taiwan by force.
Manfred Weber, head of the center-right European People’s Party, the largest party in the European Parliament, described the French president’s comments as “a disaster.”
In an an interview with Italian media, he said that the remarks had “weakened the EU” and “made clear the great rift within the European Union in defining a common strategic plan against Beijing.”
The Baltic states of Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia are demanding an explanation from Beijing after China’s top envoy to France questioned the independence of former Soviet countries like Ukraine.
Lu Shaye, China’s ambassador to France, said in an interview on Friday with French television network LCI that former Soviet countries have no “effective status” in international law.
Asked whether Crimea belongs to Ukraine, Lu said that “it depends how you perceive the problem,” arguing that it was historically part of Russia and offered to Ukraine by former Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev.
“In international law, even these ex-Soviet Union countries do not have the status, the effective [status] in international law, because there is no international agreement to materialize their status as a sovereign country,” he said.
The comments sparked outrage among Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia — three former Soviet countries.
Latvian Foreign Minister Edgars Rinkēvičs said in a tweet that his ministry summoned “the authorized chargé d’affaires of the Chinese embassy in Riga on Monday to provide explanations. This step is coordinated with Lithuania and Estonia.”
He called the comments “completely unacceptable,” adding: “We expect explanation from the Chinese side and complete retraction of this statement.”
Margus Tsahkna, Estonia’s foreign minister, called the comments “false” and “a misinterpretation of history.”
Gabrielius Landsbergis, Lithuania’s foreign minister, shared the interview on Twitter with the comment: “If anyone is still wondering why the Baltic States don’t trust China to “broker peace in Ukraine,” here’s a Chinese ambassador arguing that Crimea is Russian and our countries’ borders have no legal basis.”
Kyiv also pushed back strongly against the ambassador’s comments.
“It is strange to hear an absurd version of the ‘history of Crimea’ from a representative of a country that is scrupulous about its thousand-year history,” Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s office, said in a tweet on Sunday. “If you want to be a major political player, do not parrot the propaganda of Russian outsiders.”
France in a statement on Sunday stated its “full solidarity” with all the allied countries affected, which it said had acquired their independence “after decades of oppression,” according to Reuters. “On Ukraine specifically, it was internationally recognized within borders including Crimea in 1991 by the entire international community, including China,” a foreign ministry spokesperson was quoted as saying.
The foreign ministry spokesperson also called on China to clarify whether the ambassador’s statement reflects its position or not.
The row comes ahead of a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Luxembourg on Monday, where relations with China are on the agenda.
ABOARD COTAM UNITÉ (FRANCE’S AIR FORCE ONE) — Europe must reduce its dependency on the United States and avoid getting dragged into a confrontation between China and the U.S. over Taiwan, French President Emmanuel Macron said in an interview on his plane back from a three-day state visit to China.
Speaking with POLITICO and two French journalists after spending around six hours with Chinese President Xi Jinping during his trip, Macron emphasized his pet theory of “strategic autonomy” for Europe, presumably led by France, to become a “third superpower.”
He said “the great risk” Europe faces is that it “gets caught up in crises that are not ours, which prevents it from building its strategic autonomy,” while flying from Beijing to Guangzhou, in southern China, aboard COTAM Unité, France’s Air Force One.
Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party have enthusiastically endorsed Macron’s concept of strategic autonomy and Chinese officials constantly refer to it in their dealings with European countries. Party leaders and theorists in Beijing are convinced the West is in decline and China is on the ascendant and that weakening the transatlantic relationship will help accelerate this trend.
“The paradox would be that, overcome with panic, we believe we are just America’s followers,” Macron said in the interview. “The question Europeans need to answer … is it in our interest to accelerate [a crisis] on Taiwan? No. The worse thing would be to think that we Europeans must become followers on this topic and take our cue from the U.S. agenda and a Chinese overreaction,” he said.
Just hours after his flight left Guangzhou headed back to Paris, China launched large military exercises around the self-ruled island of Taiwan, which China claims as its territory but the U.S. has promised to arm and defend.
Those exercises were a response to Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-Wen’s 10-day diplomatic tour of Central American countries that included a meeting with Republican U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy while she transited in California. People familiar with Macron’s thinking said he was happy Beijing had at least waited until he was out of Chinese airspace before launching the simulated “Taiwan encirclement” exercise.
Beijing has repeatedly threatened to invade in recent years and has a policy of isolating the democratic island by forcing other countries to recognize it as part of “one China.”
Taiwan talks
Macron and Xi discussed Taiwan “intensely,” according to French officials accompanying the president, who appears to have taken a more conciliatory approach than the U.S. or even the European Union.
“Stability in the Taiwan Strait is of paramount importance,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who accompanied Macron for part of his visit, said she told Xi during their meeting in Beijing last Thursday. “The threat [of] the use of force to change the status quo is unacceptable.”
Chinese President Xi Jinping and French President Emmanuel Macron in Guangdong on April 7, 2023 | Pool Photo by Jacques Witt / AFP via Getty Images
Xi responded by saying anyone who thought they could influence Beijing on Taiwan was deluded.
Macron appears to agree with that assessment.
“Europeans cannot resolve the crisis in Ukraine; how can we credibly say on Taiwan, ‘watch out, if you do something wrong we will be there’? If you really want to increase tensions that’s the way to do it,” he said.
“Europe is more willing to accept a world in which China becomes a regional hegemon,” said Yanmei Xie, a geopolitics analyst at Gavekal Dragonomics. “Some of its leaders even believe such a world order may be more advantageous to Europe.”
In his trilateral meeting with Macron and von der Leyen last Thursday in Beijing, Xi Jinping went off script on only two topics — Ukraine and Taiwan — according to someone who was present in the room.
“Xi was visibly annoyed for being held responsible for the Ukraine conflict and he downplayed his recent visit to Moscow,” this person said. “He was clearly enraged by the U.S. and very upset over Taiwan, by the Taiwanese president’s transit through the U.S. and [the fact that] foreign policy issues were being raised by Europeans.”
In this meeting, Macron and von der Leyen took similar lines on Taiwan, this person said. But Macron subsequently spent more than four hours with the Chinese leader, much of it with only translators present, and his tone was far more conciliatory than von der Leyen’s when speaking with journalists.
‘Vassals’ warning
Macron also argued that Europe had increased its dependency on the U.S. for weapons and energy and must now focus on boosting European defense industries.
He also suggested Europe should reduce its dependence on the “extraterritoriality of the U.S. dollar,” a key policy objective of both Moscow and Beijing.
Macron has long been a proponent of strategic autonomy for Europe | Ludovic Marin/AFP via Getty Images
“If the tensions between the two superpowers heat up … we won’t have the time nor the resources to finance our strategic autonomy and we will become vassals,” he said.
Russia, China, Iran and other countries have been hit by U.S. sanctions in recent years that are based on denying access to the dominant dollar-denominated global financial system. Some in Europe have complained about “weaponization” of the dollar by Washington, which forces European companies to give up business and cut ties with third countries or face crippling secondary sanctions.
While sitting in the stateroom of his A330 aircraft in a hoodie with the words “French Tech” emblazoned on the chest, Macron claimed to have already “won the ideological battle on strategic autonomy” for Europe.
He did not address the question of ongoing U.S. security guarantees for the Continent, which relies heavily on American defense assistance amid the first major land war in Europe since World War II.
As one of the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and the only nuclear power in the EU, France is in a unique position militarily. However, the country has contributed far less to the defense of Ukraine against Russia’s invasion than many other countries.
As is common in France and many other European countries, the French President’s office, known as the Elysée Palace, insisted on checking and “proofreading” all the president’s quotes to be published in this article as a condition of granting the interview. This violates POLITICO’s editorial standards and policy, but we agreed to the terms in order to speak directly with the French president. POLITICO insisted that it cannot deceive its readers and would not publish anything the president did not say. The quotes in this article were all actually said by the president, but some parts of the interview in which the president spoke even more frankly about Taiwan and Europe’s strategic autonomy were cut out by the Elysée.
Chinese leader Xi Jinping had one overriding message for his visiting French counterpart Emmanuel Macron this week: Don’t let Europe get sucked into playing America’s game.
Beijing is eager to avoid the EU falling further under U.S. influence, at a time when the White House is pursuing a more assertive policy to counter China’s geopolitical and military strength.
Russia’s yearlong war against Ukraine has strengthened the alliance between Europe and the U.S., shaken up global trade, reinvigorated NATO and forced governments to look at what else could suddenly go wrong in world affairs. That’s not welcome in Beijing, which still views Washington as its strategic nemesis.
This week, China’s counter-offensive stepped up a gear, turning on the charm. Xi welcomed Macron into the grandest of settings at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, along with European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen. This was in sharp contrast to China’s current efforts to keep senior American officials at arm’s length, especially since U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken called off a trip to Beijing during the spy balloon drama earlier this year.
Both American and Chinese officials know Europe’s policy toward Beijing is far from settled. That’s an opportunity, and a risk for both sides. In recent months, U.S. officials have warned of China’s willingness to send weapons to Russia and talked up the dangers of allowing Chinese tech companies unfettered access to European markets, with some success.
TikTok, which is ultimately Chinese owned, has been banned from government and administrative phones in a number of locations in Europe, including in the EU institutions in Brussels. American pressure also led the Dutch to put new export controls on sales of advanced semiconductor equipment to China.
Yet even the hawkish von der Leyen, a former German defense minister, has dismissed the notion of decoupling Europe from China’s economy altogether. From Beijing’s perspective, this is yet another significant difference from the hostile commercial environment being promoted by the U.S.
Just this week, 36 Chinese and French businesses signed new deals in front of Macron and Xi, in what Chinese state media said was a sign of “the not declining confidence in the Chinese market of European businesses.” While hardly a statement brimming with confidence, it could have been worse.
For the last couple of years European leaders have grown more skeptical of China’s trajectory, voicing dismay at Beijing’s way of handling the coronavirus pandemic, the treatment of protesters in Hong Kong and Xinjiang’s Uyghur Muslims, as well as China’s sanctions on European politicians and military threats against Taiwan.
Then, Xi and Vladimir Putin hailed a “no limits” partnership just days before Russia invaded Ukraine. While the West rolled out tough sanctions on Moscow, China became the last major economy still interested in maintaining — and expanding — trade ties with Russia. That shocked many Western officials and provoked a fierce debate in Europe over how to punish Beijing and how far to pull out of Chinese commerce.
Beijing saw Macron as the natural partner to help avoid a nosedive in EU-China relations, especially since Angela Merkel — its previous favorite — was no longer German chancellor.
Macron’s willingness to engage with anyone — including his much-criticized contacts with Putin ahead of his war on Ukraine — made him especially appealing as Beijing sought to drive a wedge between European and American strategies on China.
Xi Jinping sees Macron as the natural to Angela Merkel, his previous partner in the West who helped avoid a nosedive in EU-China relations | Ludovic Marin/AFP via Getty Images
Not taking sides
“I’m very glad we share many identical or similar views on Sino-French, Sino-EU, international and regional issues,” Xi told Macron over tea on Friday, in the southern metropolis of Guangzhou, according to Chinese state media Xinhua.
Strategic autonomy, a French foreign policy focus, is a favorite for China, which sees the notion as proof of Europe’s distance from the U.S. For his part, Macron told Xi a day earlier that France promotes “European strategic autonomy,” doesn’t like “bloc confrontation” and believes in doing its own thing. “France does not pick sides,” he said.
The French position is challenged by some in Europe who see it as an urgent task to take a tougher approach toward Beijing.
“Macron could have easily avoided the dismal picture of European and transatlantic disunity,” said Thorsten Benner, director of the Berlin-based Global Public Policy Institute. “Nobody forced Macron to show up with a huge business delegation, repeating disproven illusions of reciprocity and deluding himself about working his personal magic on Xi to get the Chinese leader to turn against Putin.”
Holger Hestermeyer, a professor of EU law at King’s College London, said Beijing will struggle to split the transatlantic alliance.
“If China wants to succeed with building a new world order, separating the EU from the U.S. — even a little bit — would be a prized goal — and mind you, probably an elusive one,” Hestermeyer said. “Right now the EU is strengthening its defenses specifically because China tried to play divide and conquer with the EU in the past.”
Xi’s focus on America was unmistakable when he veered into a topic that was a long way from Europe’s top priority, during his three-way meeting with Macron and von der Leyen. A week earlier the Biden administration had held its second Summit for Democracy, in which Russia and China were portrayed as the main threats.
“Spreading the so-called ‘democracy versus authoritarianism’ [narrative],” Xi told his European guests on Thursday, “would only bring division and confrontation to the world.”
PARIS — French President Emmanuel Macron is jetting off on an ambitious diplomatic mission to woo Beijing away from Moscow. Officials in Washington wish him luck with that.
France hopes to dissuade China’s leader Xi Jinping from getting any cozier with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and wants the Chinese instead to play a mediation role over the war in Ukraine.
However, it is unclear what leverage Macron has — and the backdrop to his three-day trip starting Tuesday isn’t easy. Europe continues to reel from the impact of cutting off trade ties to Russia and geopolitical tensions are ratcheting up between China and the U.S., the world’s two biggest economies.
The French president wants to play a more personal card with his Chinese counterpart, after drawing fierce criticism for hours of fruitless phone calls with Putin last year — an effort that failed to stop Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Macron is expected to spend several hours in discussions with Xi, and the trip includes a visit to a city that holds personal value for the Chinese president.
“You can count with one hand the number of world leaders who could have an in-depth discussion with Xi,” said an Elysée advisor who asked to remain anonymous because they were not authorized to speak publicly.
But while expectations in France of a breakthrough are moderate, the view among other Western officials is even bleaker.
Given Macron’s failed attempts at playing a center-stage role in resolving conflicts, such as stopping the war in Ukraine or salvaging the Iran nuclear deal, there are doubts in the U.S. and elsewhere that this trip will deliver major results.
The White House has little expectation that Macron will achieve a breakthrough, according to three administration officials not authorized to speak publicly about private conversations. Xi is unlikely to act on Macron’s requests or curtail any of China’s assertive moves in the Pacific, the officials said.
White House aides ruefully recalled Macron’s failed attempts to insert himself as a peacemaker with Putin on the eve of the invasion more than a year ago and anticipate more of the same this time.
There is also some concern in the Biden administration about France’s potential coziness with China at a time when tensions between Washington and Beijing are at their highest in decades, even though the White House is supportive of the trip, the three officials said. There is no ill will toward Macron’s efforts in Beijing, they stressed.
But what might further complicate Macron’s endeavors is an emerging feud between the European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who is traveling with the president, and the Chinese.
Last Thursday, President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen delivered a keynote address on EU-China relations at the European Policy Centre in Brussels | Valeria Mongelli/AFP via Getty Images
In a high-profile speech on EU-China relations Thursday, von der Leyen urged EU countries to “de-risk” from overdependency on China. She also implied that the EU could terminate the pursuit of a landmark trade deal with China, which was clinched in 2020 but subsequently stalled. Her remarks sparked swift blowback from Chinese diplomats. Fu Cong, China’s ambassador to the European Union, said Friday he was “a little bit disappointed.”
“That speech contained a lot of misrepresentation and misinterpretation of Chinese policies and the Chinese positions,” Fu told state-owned broadcaster CGTN.
The Europeans’ visit will also be scrutinized from a human rights perspective given China’s authoritarian pivot and alleged human rights abuses across the nation.
“President Macron and von der Leyen should not sweep the Chinese government’s deepening authoritarianism under the rug during their visit to Beijing,” said Bénédicte Jeannerod, France director at Human Rights Watch. “They should use their public appearances with Xi Jinping to express strong concerns over widespread rights abuses across China, heightened oppression in Hong Kong and Tibet, and crimes against humanity in Xinjiang.”
Macron’s playbook
Speaking ahead of the visit to Beijing, the French leader said his aim was to “try and involve China as much as possible to put pressure on Russia” on topics such as nuclear weapons.
But will Macron’s charm work on Putin’s “best friend” Xi?
China has sought to position itself as a neutral party on the conflict, even as it has burnished its ties with the nation, importing energy from Russia at a discount. Despite massive international pressure on Moscow, Xi decided to make the Kremlin his first destination for a state visit after he secured a norm-breaking third term as Chinese leader. Meanwhile, POLITICO and other media have reported that the Chinese have made shipments of assault weapons and body armor to Russia.
Western European leaders that were cozy with Moscow just before the war started are now calling for engagement with China, including Macron himself. Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez was in China just days before Macron’s arrival, saying that the world “must listen to its voice” on Russia and Ukraine.
During his visit, which aides have been discussing since at least November last year, Macron will spend several hours with Xi in Beijing, and accompany him to the city of Guangzhou. The Chinese leader’s father, Xi Zhongxun used to work there as Guangdong province governor.
“Altogether the president will spend six to seven hours in discussions with the Chinese leader. The fact that he will be the first French president to visit Guangzhou is also a personal touch, since President Xi’s father used to be a party leader there,” said the Elysee official cited earlier.
The French are hoping the time Macron spends privately with Xi will help win Chinese support on issues such as stopping Russian attacks on civilian infrastructure in Ukraine or halting the illegal transfer of Ukrainian children.
It’s also expected that Macron will try to test Xi’s reaction to Russia’s threat to host nuclear missiles in Belarus, a decision that flies in the face of China’s non-proliferation stance, barely a month after Beijing revealed its 12-point plan for resolving the conflict in Ukraine.
Despite massive international pressure on Moscow, Xi decided to make the Kremlin his first destination for a state visit after he secured a norm-breaking third term as Chinese leader | Greg Baker/AFP via Getty Images
“It’s absolutely fundamental to have moments of private encounters,” said Sylvie Bermann, France’s former ambassador to China. “Diplomacy is about playing the long game …With China, I don’t think it is easy to strike up relationships as Westerners. But maybe it means that we’ll be able to talk when the time comes.”
Despite the show of goodwill however, the French president will not hold back from sending “some messages” to Beijing on supporting Russia, particularly when it comes to arms deliveries, a senior French official said.
“We aren’t going to threaten, but send some warnings: The Chinese need to understand that [sending weapons] would have consequences for Europe, for us … We need to remind them of our security interests.” The official said Macron would steer clear of threatening sanctions.
Antoine Bondaz, China specialist at Paris’ Foundation for Strategic Research, questioned the emphasis on trying to bond with Xi. “That’s not how things work in China. It’s not France’s ‘small fry’ president, who spends two hours walking with Xi who will change things, China only understands the balance of power,” he said. “Maybe it works with Putin, who has spent over 400 hours with Xi in the last ten years, but Macron doesn’t know Xi.”
EU unity on show as trade takes center stage
Trade will also feature high on Macron’s priorities as he brings with him a large delegation of business leaders including representatives from EDF, Alstom, Veolia and the aerospace giant Airbus. According to an Elysée official speaking on condition of anonymity, a potential deal with European plane maker Airbus may be in the works, which would come after China ordered 300 planes for €30 billion in 2019.
Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire and Foreign Affairs Minister Catherine Colonna are also traveling with the president.
With the EU facing an emerging trade war between China and the U.S., the presence of von der Leyen, will add yet another layer of complexity to the mix. The French president said in March that he had “suggested to von der Leyen that she accompany him to China” so they could speak “with a unified voice.”
“I don’t have a European mandate, as France has its independent diplomacy — but I’m attached to European coordination,” he said.
A joint trip with the EU head sets him apart from Olaf Scholz, the German Chancellor whom French officials criticized in private for hurrying to China for a day trip with Xi last year, focusing more on German rather than EU interests.
With von der Leyen by his side, Macron may well hope to be seen as the EU’s leading voice. In the U.S., the French president had tried that tactic and obtained some concessions on America’s green subsidies plan for the bloc.
In China, that card may be harder to play.
Clea Caulcutt reported in Paris, Stuart Lau in Brussels and Jonathan Lemire in Washington.
BRUSSELS — It would be a “red line” for the European Union if China sends arms to Russia, the EU’s foreign policy chief said Monday.
Josep Borrell’s warning came two days after U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken expressed “deep concern” that China was considering providing potentially “lethal assistance” to Russia for its war against Ukraine.
Recalling a meeting he held on Saturday with top Chinese diplomat Wang Yi, Borrell told reporters: “I expressed our strong concern about China providing arms to Russia. I asked him not to do that, and expressing not only our concern, but the fact that for us, it would be a red line in our relationship.
“He told me that they’re not going to do it, that they don’t plan to do it,” Borrell said, adding: “But we will remain vigilant.”
Other EU foreign ministers attending a Foreign Affairs Council in Brussels also warned Beijing not to cross that line.
“If such a decision is taken [by China] it will definitely have consequences, of course,” Tobias Billström, foreign minister of Sweden, which holds the rotating presidency of the Council of the EU, said. “We stand side by side with the United States on that message.”
Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis said the EU would be on the same page as the U.S. should Chinese arms end up in Russian hands.
“There were those who expected the West … not to be united when it came to the Russian attack on Ukraine, but we were united. So I would think that, drawing from this lesson, there would be enough arguments for China not to assist Russia in its genocidal war in Ukraine,” Landsbergis said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy also urged China to remain “pragmatic.”
“I personally have appealed to the Chinese leadership through direct channels and publicly not to offer any support to the Russians in this war. My hope is that Beijing will maintain a pragmatic attitude, because otherwise we are risking World War III, I think they are well aware of that,” he said in an interview with Italian media. “Our relationship with China has always been excellent, we have had intense economic relations for many years, and it is in everyone’s interest that they do not change.”
Chinese state-owned defense companies were found to be shipping navigation equipment, jamming technology and jet-fighter parts to sanctioned Russian government-owned defense companies, Wall Street Journal reported earlier this month.
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 met Wang later on Saturday and called on him to “use [China’s] closeness to convince Russia to engage in real peace efforts. Borrell expressed hope that Wang’s visit to Moscow could be used to convince Russia to stop its brutal war,” according to an EU official familiar with the talks, adding the EU chief told Wang Russia conducted “gross violation of the letter and spirit of the U.N. Charter.”
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 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.
This article was updated to include details of the meeting between Wang and Borrell.
CORRECTION: Jens Stoltenberg’s reference to Asia has been updated.
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.”
BRUSSELS — The governor of the Xinjiang region in China has canceled his controversial trip to Paris and Brussels, three people with knowledge of his plan told POLITICO.
The cancelation of Erkin Tuniyaz’s tour followed widespread concerns from lawmakers and activists that Europe would be rolling out the red carpet for the man in charge of the Chinese region where extreme measures against the Uyghur Muslim community amounted to what the U.N. calls potential crimes against humanity.
News of the trip being called off was relayed to people invited to his reception parties planned by Chinese diplomats in France and Belgium. “Due to scheduling reasons … [the event] is postponed,” according to an email sent to the EU guests in Brussels, the text of which was seen by POLITICO.
The one sent to invitees in Paris cited “an important domestic agenda.” Those sharing the information with POLITICO did so on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment on the Xinjiang governor’s trip publicly.
An emailed inquiry from POLITICO to the Chinese embassy in London, where Tuniyaz was supposed to begin his tour on Monday, was not answered. It remains unclear whether he will still go to London.
POLITICO reported on his planned trip to Brussels last week following a report by the Guardian on his London visit. It later emerged that he was also scheduled to go to Paris.
Critics questioned the British Foreign Office and the EU foreign policy arm for an initial plan to invite Tuniyaz for meetings during his trip. Some threatened legal action against him while he’s on European soil. The EU later defended its decision, saying they turned down Beijing’s requests to meet more senior EU officials.
The Chinese foreign ministry didn’t confirm Tuniyaz’s initial trip plan.
On the other hand, it announced that the Chinese foreign policy chief, Wang Yi, will be visiting Russia and four EU countries: France, Germany, Italy and Hungary. He’s also expected to speak at the Munich Security Conference. This will be Wang’s first trip to Europe since his promotion from foreign minister to the Communist Party Politburo late last year.
In the meantime the EU is expected to relaunch the human rights dialogue with China later this month, the first time since Beijing imposed sanctions on European diplomats, lawmakers and scholars in 2020, according to an EU official on foreign policy.
