European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Charles Michel on March 25, 2022 in Brussels (AFP / JOHN THYS)
The EU wants to persuade China to give up helping Moscow to counter Western sanctions on Friday during a virtual summit where Beijing intends to revive its economic relationship with a Europe weakened by the war in Ukraine.
The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and the President of the Council, Charles Michel, speaking on behalf of the Member States, will meet by videoconference with Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang and then President Xi Jinping.
“The meeting will focus on the role that we encourage China to play in exerting all the necessary influence and pressure on Russia. This was not the initial purpose of the summit, it necessarily becomes so,” said Tuesday. French Secretary of State for European Affairs Clément Beaune.
“In concrete terms, it is essential to know whether China is using its influence to establish a ceasefire, humanitarian corridors” or “if it is helping Moscow to circumvent” the sanctions, by increasing its purchases of hydrocarbons or through aid financial, explains a European official.
Beijing refuses to condemn the invasion of Ukraine, and in early March hailed a “rock-solid” friendship with Moscow, defending Russia’s “reasonable” concerns for its security.
– “Strategic calculation” –
“The Europeans will seek to influence the strategic calculation of the Chinese leaders, by highlighting the economic cost that they would suffer in the event of concrete support for Russia”, estimates Grzegorz Stec, of the German institute Merics.
Chinese President Xi Jinping on a video screen in Beijing on March 11, 2022 (AFP/NOEL CELIS)
“China’s convoluted reactions are a way of being on the Russian side without paying the price. Without increased pressure, it will bring more help to Putin,” fears German Green MEP Reinhard Bütikofer.
But the EU is a prisoner of its strong interdependence with Beijing: it absorbs 15% of exports from the Asian giant, which supplies it with manufactured goods and crucial components. China represents 10% of the exports of the Twenty-Seven, a key market, in particular for German industrialists.
The EU and China signed an ambitious investment agreement at the end of 2020, at the instigation of Berlin.
But its ratification is today frozen by EU sanctions to punish the use of forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region and Beijing’s counter-sanctions against European parliamentarians and researchers. Added to this is the conflict due to China’s blocking of imports from Lithuania after the opening of a Taiwanese representation in this country.
“The danger is that China + oversells + its neutrality to obtain concessions, such as the resumption of negotiations on the investment agreement”, warns Valérie Niquet of the Foundation for Strategic Research.
– “Illusive” –
On Wednesday, the head of Russian diplomacy Sergei Lavrov, visiting Beijing, obtained a reaffirmation of the “unlimited” friendship of the two countries vis-à-vis the United States, in the name of a new “multipolar world order”: a a vision that heightens concern about the emergence of an “authoritarian” bloc against the West.
Evolution of Russia’s imports and exports with its main partners (AFP / )
“The idea of detaching China from Russia is illusory: when the war in Ukraine is over, the attention of the United States will turn primarily, and not in a friendly spirit, to China, which therefore has an interest in maintaining his cooperation” with his neighbour, judge Sylvie Bermann, former French ambassador to Moscow and Beijing.
And to remember that China is not isolated, many countries (India, Pakistan, South Africa, Brazil…) also refusing to criticize Moscow.
For Beijing, the Europeans have allowed themselves to be drawn into a conflict instigated by Washington and which has revealed the vulnerabilities of the West.
Ultra-dependent on Russian gas, “Europe may have shot itself in the foot by joining the American sanctions”, warns the nationalist daily Global Times. He rejects any link between EU-China relations and the crisis between the Europeans and Moscow arising from the war in Ukraine, two issues on the other hand “inextricably linked”, according to the European official.
Asked about the summit on Wednesday, Chinese diplomatic spokesman Wang Wenbin hoped for “sustained and healthy development of China-EU relations, in order to inject stability and positive energy into a complex and turbulent world situation”, without making any reference to Ukraine.