National Post (National Edition)
XI WADES INTO EUROPE'S POLITICAL DIVIDES
The showpiece stop in Chinese President Xi Jinping's three-nation tour of Europe was France. From Paris to the Pyrenees, Xi and French President Emmanuel Macron engaged in a mutual charm offensive. Xi was on his first visit to Europe in half a decade, and eager to show the Chinese public that China is a major respected power on the world stage at a time of geopolitical confrontation abroad and relative economic stagnation at home. Macron, who reiterated before Xi's trip the importance of France not being a mere “vassal” to the United States, found in the moment a demonstration of his nation's potential ability to guide Europe's “strategic autonomy.”
But what was arguably more revealing about the global state of play were the stops Xi made after France: Serbia and Hungary. As the war in Ukraine continues to roil European politics, Xi chose two countries that stand conspicuously athwart the European consensus.
Serbia is a non-E.U., nonNATO member with a historically close relationship to Russia and hospitable dealings with Beijing. Hungary has become the bete noire of the European Union, with illiberal Prime Minister Viktor Orbán conspicuously chummy with the Kremlin and opposed to continued military support of Ukraine.
Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic met the Chinese president Wednesday on the tarmac in Belgrade, where Xi voiced China's long-standing critique of NATO and Western hegemony and aggression. Banners set up by the site of the Chinese embassy, which NATO infamously bombed in 1999, expressed a kind of ideological solidarity: “Kosovo is Serbia — Taiwan is China,” a reflection of territorial claims and revanchist visions that have set both countries at odds with the West.
Later in the day, Xi was in Budapest, where he published an op-ed hailing Hungary as “the No. 1 target in the central Eastern
European region for Chinese investment.” Hungary was an early signatory to China's Belt and Road Initiative, a major global program of infrastructure deals, and now hopes to become a significant cog in the electric-vehicle supply chain, inking deals with Chinese giants BYD and Great Wall Motor to set up manufacturing facilities and assembly plants in the country.
“Orban is putting his bets on China. It has been very clear that the government wants to turn the country into a logistical hub,” Tamas Matura, a senior fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis, told the Wall Street Journal. “They also believe in manufacturing, industry and the re-industrialization of the country, which the Chinese are only too happy to help with.”
Xi's choice of European destinations reflects Beijing's limited options.
“Gone are the heydays of economic globalization, when China was viewed as an indispensable investment destination,” Chatham
House's Yu Jie noted. “Instead, the mood among European leaders is to `derisk' — moving investments and supply chains away from the world's second largest economy.”
Yu added that “China's protracted geopolitical competition with the U.S. has already reduced Beijing's choice of European partners and consumers.” An initiative by China's foreign ministry to stitch together a bloc of Eastern and Central European nations in closer co-operation with Beijing collapsed in recent years. Countries like Lithuania and the Czech Republic have taken conspicuously strident stands in support of Taiwan.
“Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine seemed to cement a shift toward a more hawkish view, as the European Union and most of its member states reconsidered the wisdom of engaging with authoritarian regimes,” The Washington Post reported.
Macron pressed Xi on helping turn the tide of the war in Ukraine and securing more market access for European companies in China. On both fronts, he came away with little to show. But neither did Xi receive much of a boost from his meetings with French and E.U. leaders in Paris, who co-ordinated their approach before the Chinese president's arrival. China may yet stave off the same sort of punitive tariffs levied by the U.S. on its exports, but the European trend lines for Beijing are mostly pointing in a negative direction.
“For Macron, the return on investment of his charm offensive might be even lower than expected, whether on trade or foreign policy. Macron doesn't want to give up on convincing Xi to do less with Putin, but there is no indication that Xi will do so,” Tara Varma of the Brookings Institution wrote. “The rest of Xi's European tour suggests no inclination to such compromise, nor any larger willingness to curtail Russia's action.”
As an editorial in the Financial Times expounded, “what is most striking about Xi's visit is that he appears to have offered no concessions on the EU's trade concerns — regarding China's excess capacity in EVs and green technology, industrial subsidies, and market access. Neither does he appear to have given any reassurances that China will restrict the flow to Russia of dual-use goods, which are supporting its war effort.”
It added, “cozying up to the strongman leaders of Hungary and Serbia will have done little to assuage concerns in key EU capitals about the Chinese leader's authoritarian world view.”
Xi walked along Europe's political fault lines, currying favour with nationalist leaders who are eager to thumb their nose at Brussels. In doing so, he also underscored the growing distance between Beijing and the major capitals of the West.
“China likes to claim that it wants a `strong Europe,'” an editorial in Le Monde declared. “Nothing could be further from the truth. Its aim is to weaken Western democracies, thereby undermining the transatlantic relationship as much as possible, and even the European Union itself.”