Shameful non-appearances at China summit a sign that Europe is taking a new course

So what do you call 17 + 1 minus six? An embarrassment, at least, when six of the European leaders stayed away from the last summit.

It finally looked like 11 + 1, said Politician Stuart Lau, when half of the 12 EU national leaders invited to the club failed to appear to pay homage to Chinese President Xi Jinping. It’s a biting diplomatic obstacle for Xi. Even the lure of access to Chinas coronavirus vaccines failed to impress. And they didn’t even have to make the effort to travel to the pinnacle that was held over video links.

Central and Eastern European leaders have felt increasingly weak from Beijing’s failure to deliver. And some of the promises made have not been fulfilled. or $ 750 million ($ 953m) loan to build a Highway Belt in Little Montenegro is being blamed on the county Explosion of national debt to 80 percent of GDP.

Its president, Milo Djukanovic, went to Beijing a few days before the summit to complain at a Chinese investor meeting, citing strategic aphorisms from China’s ancient Sun Tzu, according to South China Morning Post: If there is no planning skill, it is difficult to achieve, and if there is no planning skill, it will fail.

Entering the Chinese market was another painful point for some. Polish President Andrzej Duda said his country was unhappy with the speed of opening the Chinas market for farm production.

And while China is a formidable presence in Europe, the frustration of the leaders of Bulgaria, Romania, Slovenia, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia is just one of many indicators of Beijing’s growing European readiness.

A threshold moment was the official designation of China as a systemic rival of the European Commission 2019. Still, Europe was reluctant to abandon its collective dream of Chinese money as a source of its future prosperity.

European uncertainty emerged in March 2019, shortly after China was designated as a systemic rival. Xi Jinping flew to Paris and, after a champagne toast with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, then-European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and French President Emmanuel Macron, he proved their seriousness.

Did the Europeans really love him, calling China a systematic rival, Xi wanted to know? like The Wall Street Journal reported it, first Merkel bothered with a compliment to Mr Xi, saying the language showed that Europe recognized China as a growing power and influence. Next, Juncker cut tensions with a joke about the EU’s inability to agree on what China was, he said. Diary. But Macron was cut. True true, said the French President. You are a rival. Within weeks, a French naval vessel sailed through the Taiwan Straits against Xis’s wishes.

Since then, Europe has become more like Macron, less like Merkel. The Chinas pandemic and behavior reinforced growing suspicions about Beijing. The percentage of people who say they did not trust Xi Jinping to do the right thing in world affairs in six European nations rose by 9 percent and 21 percent in a Pew poll published last October. The total without any confidence in Xi was now 70 percent in the Netherlands, 78 in Germany and 80 in France. If 2019 was the year when Europeans began to have serious doubts about Beijing’s geopolitical intentions, 2020 could go down in history as the moment when they turned against China in opposition, he wrote. Andreas Kluth, former editor-in-chief of Handelsblatt Global.

Because China, trying to take advantage of the pandemic with a stunning unsophisticated propaganda campaign, inadvertently showed Europeans its cynicism, he wrote for Bloomberg. For example, in France when the Chinese embassy published a savage accusation that French pension homes let the elderly die. Or in Italy when Chinese socks insinuated that the virus originated in Europe. Or in Germany when Chinese diplomats asked government officials to collect public praise for China.

Under its new, tougher stance, the EU is closing China of its new research initiative firm, Horizon Europe, which aims to increase EU science spending by 50 per cent to around € 100 billion ($ 153 billion) between now and 2027.

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The EU aims to exclude nations that do not share EU values, according to Maria Cristina Russo, director of international co-operation in research and innovation at the European Commission, the EU’s executive branch. Similarly, the commission is drafting guidelines to limit foreign interference in universities and research institutes. Governments are increasingly challenging China Huawei as well.

But what about the big news event just two months ago, when the EU signed its long-awaited Comprehensive Investment Agreement with China? This agreement has yet to be ratified by the European Parliament and its meeting resistance. Some members are critical of China’s behavior in Xinjiang and Hong Kong. Reinhard Btikofer, head of the European Parliament delegation for relations with China, said that even the most basic research can not ignore the geopolitical implications because cooperation and interdependence can be armed and is being armed as we speak.

And across the canal, a former part of the EU, Britain, is also strengthening its stance against the policies of the Chinese Communist Parties. Public opinion is leading the way again. A new poll by the British Foreign Policy Group reveals that 79 percent of people called China a potential security threat, right after Russia. London is now banning Huawei and demanding that UN inspectors be given access to Chinas Xinjiang province.

Europeans are increasingly moving away from Xi and the Belt and its Route to find their way.

Peter Hartcher is an international editor.