Zoltán Fehér and Valbona Zeneli
In times of evolving transatlantic dynamics under the second Trump administration, and in response to shifting global power balances, some within the European Union have shown interest in exploring a more nuanced engagement with China.
However, there are structural obstacles to a warming up between Brussels and Beijing, considering China’s unfair trade practices in the economic sphere, its troubling human rights record, and its alliance with Russia and support for Moscow’s war on Ukraine in the security sphere. China’s leadership is not willing to change course. Instead,
China is gambling on the EU’s weakness and hoping that Brussels will simply give in. While the EU is indeed in a tough spot currently, it cannot agree to a “grand deal” if China is unwilling to make major concessions on its unfair economic practices and support for the war in Ukraine.
Now all eyes are on the upcoming China-EU summit to take place in Beijing on July 24, an important gathering that will mark 50 years of diplomatic relations. But if the summit demonstrates anything,
it will be the fact that China is unwilling to play by the rules of the international order and that it is in neither in the EU’s nor in the United States’ interests to try to make a grand deal with Beijing without a major paradigm shift in China’s behavior.
The months-long discourse about an China-EU rapprochement and the China-EU summit take place against the backdrop of major divisions between the EU and the United States in recent months. The second Trump administration’s initial ambiguity on support for Ukraine and the assertive approach toward the EU in its trade policy created uncertainty in Europe,
No comments:
Post a Comment