Chinese Premier Le Keqiang in videoconference with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, April 1, 2022 in Brussels (POOL / Olivier Matthys)
The EU was trying Friday to persuade China to give up helping Moscow to counter Western sanctions, during a virtual summit where Beijing intends to revive its economic relationship with a Europe weakened by the war in Ukraine.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Council President Charles Michel, speaking on behalf of member states, spoke for almost two hours on Monday morning (Brussels time) with the Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang.
A discussion is also scheduled for 2 p.m. (1200 GMT) with President Xi Jinping.
“On Ukraine, Li Keqiang said that China opposes both hot and cold wars, bloc divisions and refuses to take sides,” Wang Lutong, head of the agency, tweeted. Europe to the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Chinese and European officials “agreed to work together to maintain global peace, stability and prosperity” and “to conduct a dialogue on energy and food security,” Wang added.
For the EU, the summit is mainly aimed at urging China not to support Russia too actively.
“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 situation, explained a European official on Thursday.
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.
The President of the European Council Charles Michel (l), the head of European diplomacy Josep Borrell (d) and the President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen in a videoconference with Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang, on April 1, 2022 in Brussels ( POOL / Olivier Matthys)
“China’s convoluted reactions are a way of being on the Russian side without paying the price. Without increased pressure, it will provide 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 exports from the Twenty-Seven, a key market for European industrialists, especially German ones.
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 once morest European parliamentarians and researchers.
Added to this is the conflict due to China’s blocking of imports from Lithuania following the opening of a Taiwanese representation in this country.
From now on, “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, had obtained a reaffirmation of the “limitless” friendship of the two countries once morest the United States, in the name of a new “multipolar world order”: a a vision that heightens concern regarding the emergence of an “authoritarian” bloc once morest 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”, warned the nationalist daily Global Times on Thursday.
The newspaper rejected 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.
