Beijing Courts Europe as Trade War With US Grinds On: Australia Institute

Determined to resist a trade war with the United States, China has turned to Europe, and Russia, for new relationships, says a study by the Australia Institute.

FILE PHOTO: A European Union flag flutters outside the EU Commission headquarters, in Brussels, Belgium, February 1, 2023 REUTERS/Yves Herman/File Photo

The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) foreign policymakers see Donald Trump’s tariffs as dangerous, but not insurmountable, according to the Australia Institute.

But while attention has been focused on Beijing’s response to Washington, there have also been efforts by the CCP to strengthen ties with Europe and Russia.

That’s one of the conclusions of the Australia Institute’s latest six-monthly commentary on Beijing’s foreign policy authored by Frank Yuan, a postdoctoral fellow in history.

“Beijing espouses much hope about its relationship with Europe. Chinese leaders have declared that there are neither fundamental conflicts in interest nor geopolitical tensions between itself and the EU, that their relationship is that between partners, and that both were defenders of the global multilateral trade system,” Yuan notes, citing the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA).

“Beijing also identified Europe as an important pole in the multipolar world and, implicitly distancing itself from Moscow, declared that China had always supported the progress of the EU.”

Currently, CCP officials are optimistic about Sino-American relations after Trump offered some reductions to tariff levels though they’ve not been averse to using combative rhetoric, asserting, for instance, that the trade war was a malicious attack on China’s right to development, Yuan says.

America’s continued supply of arms to Taiwan and its expanding ties with Taipei are viewed as further provocation—not just interference in what Beijing sees as Chinese domestic affairs, but also an attempt to “contain China through Taiwan,” as the MFA said last year.

That makes attempts at building stronger alliances with European nations an obvious option for the CCP foreign policy establishment.

CCP Does Not Think US-Europe Ties Will Weaken

While U.S. Vice President JD Vance was less than complimentary about Europe at the Munich Security Conference in mid-February—when he criticised the European Union leaders for what he described as backsliding on freedom of speech and democracy—Chinese analysts did not see this as a major reset in U.S.-EU relations, as many Western commentators did, Yuan says.

“There was no suggestion from Chinese sources that European governments would seek to break from their alliance with Washington, particularly given their lack of independent defence capability,” he says.

Beijing’s more conciliatory approach to Europe is part of a strategy to “quarantine” those relations from any disputes it may have with America.

“In a telling example, the MFA made a low-key response to a report that German intelligence agencies had information that COVID-19 emerged from a laboratory in Wuhan, and did not criticise the German media or government over what had been a highly sensitive issue for Beijing,” Yuan notes.

Similarly, “reports of the EU’s investigation into Chinese trade practices in medical equipment, likewise, only elicited a vague statement that did not explicitly criticise Brussels.”

Beijing has also refrained from endorsing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, with Foreign Minister Wang Yi saying, in an interview at the Munich conference, that “all disputes and disagreements should be settled through dialogue in a political way because force and sanction cannot truly and completely solve the issue… the same goes for the Ukraine issue.”

He also reiterated China’s basic views on settling the war, which include respect for “the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries.”

“While Beijing clearly disagrees with the sanctions imposed by the U.S. and its allies on Russia, it is not shy to signal its discomfort with Russia’s use of force, even if it sympathises with Moscow’s security concerns,” Yuan says.

Beijing Unlikely to Leverage Russia Relationship

Likewise, what Yuan calls the “intrinsic and growing power imbalance between China and Russia” was reflected in both countries’ conflicting reports of a meeting between Wang and his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov in April. While Beijing’s summation said Russia “fully supports China’s position on the Taiwan question,” the official release from Moscow did not mention the issue.

Similarly, an article under the name of CCP leader Xi Jinping in a Russian newspaper expressed appreciation for Russia’s support of the “one China principle” but made no reference to the Ukraine war or any support for it.

With Beijing assuming the dominant position in its relationship with Russia, it has “made a multipolar order an organising principle of its foreign policy,” Yuan says, “and has identified Moscow as a partner in that pursuit.”

But it’s unlikely that China will seek to strongly assert what it sees as its superior position.

“Public commentary discounts the possibility of Moscow turning against Beijing through a rapid rapprochement with Washington,” Yuan says. “It identifies significant divergence in interests between the U.S. and Russia, as well as the lack of existing Sino-Russian disputes.

“Nonetheless, one analyst noted the need to maintain a stable and positive relationship with Moscow to hedge against the risk of a Russo-American détente.”