More hostility within EU casts hurdles to China relations

▶ Bloc’s leaders urged to act to steer ties on track

Some European countries have recently taken turns criticizing China for what they said “repressing” Uygurs in its Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, especially at the ongoing UN Human Rights Council. Against the backdrop of increasing China-EU trade exchanges, politicizing human rights issues may cast hurdles to ties, analysts said, noting that the EU should have more independence from the US and avoid being bound to the US’ warship of attacking China in fields like human rights.

Chinese President Xi Jinping had a phone call with his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron on Thursday. Taking note of Macron’s strong call for strategic independence of the EU, Xi stressed that China believes a stronger Europe is conducive to the peace, stability and development of a multipolar world, and to boosting cooperation between the two major forces of China and the EU to jointly tackle various global challenges, the Xinhua News agency reported.

The remarks came against the backdrop that since January 22, the 46th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council has seen some EU countries stand out in accusing China of “oppressing” Uygurs in Xinjiang, which have been refuted by Chinese representatives to the session.

For example, speaking via video link at the HUNHRC, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian on Wednesday accused China of “institutionalized oppression” of Uygurs. Germany, the UK, Canada, and also the US, which reappeared at the UNHRC as an observer after being absent for three years, made similar accusations.

On human rights issues, the EU has been under pressure from the US to criticize China’s Xinjiang policies and accused China of “genocide;” the EU’s accusation against China was also partly out of its traditional values, said Cui Hongjian, director of the Department of European Studies, China Institute of International Studies.

Under such circumstances, there may be more frictions between China and the EU on human rights issues as some EU politicians may push legislation or sanctions related to Xinjiang or directly accuse China of “genocide,” Cui said.

For example, the Dutch parliament passed a non-binding motion regarding Xinjiang on Thursday, the first such move by a European country, according to Reuters.

He Zhigao, a research fellow at the Institute of European Studies of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said that small and medium European countries like the Netherlands tend to play bet-hedging to maximize their interests, so they do business with China for economic interests while imposing political pressure on China.

Given these expected twists and turns, it requires the leadership of China and those from Europe to steer their relations to the right track and let these voices be diluted, He told the Global Times.

Cui predicted that although disputes in certain fields may occur more frequently, the bilateral ties in the near future may remain stable on the general level as leaders of China and the EU have reached consensus.

However, experts also noted that given that one of China’s focuses this year is to fight disinformation and oppose politicizing human rights issues, the EU should be aware that taking any tough and reckless collisions with China in this field will lead to huge and unpredictable risks.

Different from the US, which has placed human rights at the center of its diplomatic policies to attack China, the EU does not, and its foreign policies serve the overall interests, experts said, warning that the EU should weigh pros and cons when facing with the US’ attempt to bind it with US policies toward China.

He noted that the EU has focused more on strategic independence as it does not want to be marginalized in the international system and also wants to gain an upper hand during interactions with China and the US amid the more intense competition between the two.

He said that considering current China-EU economic and trade relations, once the EU gives priority to human rights issues over implementing pragmatic and practical diplomacies toward China, bilateral ties would be hurt.

China overtook the US last year as Europe’s top trading partner for the first time, data from the European statistics office in February shows.