Global Courant
BUDAPEST – The Group of Seven’s seemingly united front against China at last month’s Tokyo summit has given way to a new round of diplomacy with Beijing.
Chinese analysts draw a sharp line between the United States and Japan, which are committed to containing China, and the leading European countries, which are open to economic stimulus, on the other.
China’s runner-up Li Qiang will visit Berlin and Paris later this month, where he will attend a conference on June 22 support for poor countries (greatly titled “A New World Financial Pact”). The conference is the project of French Prime Minister Macron; its importance lies in the fact that as of March China exported more to the South than to the entire developed world.
In the short term, countries like France with longstanding interests in the Global South must find a modus vivendi with China. In the medium term, China’s massive economic commitment to Africa — an estimated $155 billion in investment over the past two decades — represents Europe’s best hope of preventing an uncontrollable wave of immigration from Africa.
On his way to Paris, Prime Minister Li meets German Chancellor Gerhard Scholz in Berlin. The head of Scholz’s Social Democratic Party, Lars Klingbeil, met with Li Qiang in Beijing this week. Li stated that “Beijing is poised to take its strategic partnership with Berlin to new heights”, adding: “China attaches great importance to its relations and cooperation with Germany, and it is important for the two main influential countries to remain faithful to their original commitment to cooperation, and strengthen dialogue and coordination to bring more stability and security to the world.”
Klingbeil meets Wang. Photo: Xinhua
Klingbeil also met with Wang Huning, perhaps China’s most visible political strategist, and the author of the tract “America Against America,” a critique of America’s cultural and economic decline.
One of the main currents in the SPD, the Seeheimer Kreis, has a white paper calling for a “multidimensional policy” towards China, in response to Washington’s efforts to isolate China. “An abrupt end to trade relations with China would be an economic disaster,” warns the Seeheimer newspaper. “We are responsible for the security of domestic employment. In that regard, a coherent China strategy should not be an anti-China strategy that pursues the objection of decoupling Germany from China.”
Party-to-party diplomacy may be more important to German-Chinese relations than government-to-government discussions. Over the past year, the most visibly pro-American German party, the Greens, has fallen from 22% to just 14% in the polls, while the far-right, anti-NATO Alternative für Deutschland has risen from 14% to 19%. The German coalition has effectively disintegrated and the parties pursue their policy goals separately.
Hungary is an important indicator for European policy. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán seems to be far removed from the European mainstream. He declared on 23 May that Russia could not be defeated militarily in Ukraine, and his foreign minister announced that Budapest would veto additional EU aid to Kiev. Hungary’s relations with China are strong and developing rapidly.
Orbán’s government has previously sought more than less Chinese high-tech investment, including the East-West intermodal freight hub, the first rail transportation facility to use 5G broadband and artificial intelligence for container handling, a key project for China’s Huawei. That contrasts with the rumblings (reported June 7 in the Financial Times) of an EU-wide ban on Huawei infrastructure.
Then-Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang, left, and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban address a press conference at Parliament in Budapest in November 2017 after official talks. Photo: Global Courant Files/AFP/Attila Kisbenedek
Orbán is less isolated than he seems. It is unlikely that he would take up outlier positions unless he had the tacit support of other European political forces. The Hungarian leader is likely to set the pace for the next round of talks between the EU and China.
China sees opportunities in Europe. Countries in the G7 “have varying degrees of intensity in dealing with China, and China may employ a strategy to divide them,” influential commentator Yang Feng wrote in a May 23 online analysis that likely reflects the Chinese government’s mindset .
“The difference in the degree” of opposition to China, Yang wrote, “means that China has different options for responding to the positions of the seven countries. What Japan has adopted is industrial substitution, which is direct competition (with China) But in the case of France, Germany and Italy, China can offer a policy of attraction, opening up its domestic economy and trade, as well as investment.As for the UK, China will cooperate if it wants to cooperate and back out if it does not want to cooperate It’s for the UK to choose.”
The Chinese commentator noted, “No matter how loud the Group of Seven screams, the only countries China really has to deal with are the United States and Japan.” He added: “After Biden took office, in terms of economic and trade policies, only Japan has cooperated with US policies and imposed blockades and sanctions on China. Most other countries have remained at the talking level.”
Yang Feng added that China “will continue to work towards de-dollarization in the non-US world. Even US allies, such as the countries of the European Union, are also interested in getting rid of their dependence on the US dollar.”
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