The European Union on Friday urged China not to help Moscow evade Western sanctions for its invasion of Ukraine, which would “severely damage China’s reputation” and affect Beijing’s economic relations with China. the Europe.
The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and the President of the European Council, Charles Michel, on behalf of the EU Member States, met, via videoconference, with the Chinese Prime Minister, Li Keqiang, and then with President Xi Jinping.
The European Union (EU) appealed to China to “not interfere” with Western sanctions against Russia for the offensive against Ukraine and warned that support for Moscow “will seriously damage the reputation” of the Asian country in Europe.
“This will seriously damage China’s reputation here in Europe”, where “companies look at how countries position themselves”, said Van der Leyen, at the end of the videoconference with the Chinese president.
“No European citizen will understand support for Moscow, which would strengthen its capabilities to continue its war” in Ukraine, added Von der Leyen, who was sitting next to Charles Michel.
“We hope that China realizes the importance of its international image and the economic relationship between China and the EU,” Michel said, without further details.
So far, Beijing has avoided condemning Russia’s invasion and expressed its “rock solid” friendship with Moscow in early March.
– “Strategic calculation” –
“Europeans seek to influence the strategic calculation of Chinese leaders, highlighting the economic cost they would suffer in case of concrete support for Russia”, explained Grzegorz Stec, from the German institute Merics, before the videoconference.
“China’s controversial reactions are a way of being on the Russian side without paying the price. Without more pressure, it will bring more help to Putin”, said German ecologist MEP Reinhard Bütikofer.
However, the EU is a prisoner of its strong interdependence with Beijing: the bloc absorbs 15% of the Asian giant’s exports, which supplies it with manufactured goods and essential components.
China also buys 10% of EU exports, being a key market especially for German industry.
Under Berlin’s spur, the EU and China signed an ambitious investment deal at the end of 2020.
But its ratification is frozen by EU sanctions to punish forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region, denied by Beijing, and the communist regime’s reprisals against European lawmakers and investigators.
And this was recently joined by China’s blockade of imports from Lithuania after that Baltic country allowed the opening of an official representation of Taiwan.
“The danger is that China ‘oversells’ its neutrality to obtain concessions, such as the reactivation of negotiations on the investment agreement”, warns Valérie Niquet, from the Foundation for Strategic Research.
– An “illusory” idea –
This Wednesday (30), in Beijing, the head of Russian diplomacy, Sergei Lavrov, obtained a reaffirmation of the “unlimited” friendship of the two countries towards the United States in the name of a new “multipolar world order”, a vision that arouses concern. of the West in the face of the emergence of a hostile “authoritarian” bloc.
“The idea of separating China from Russia is illusory: when the war in Ukraine ends, the attention of the United States will turn, as a priority and not in a friendly spirit, to China, which is why it has an interest in maintaining its cooperation” with its neighbor, says Sylvie Bermann, former French ambassador to Moscow and Beijing.
China is not the only country of international importance that does not condemn Moscow. Neither do India, South Africa, Pakistan and Brazil.
For Beijing, the Europeans allowed themselves to be dragged into a conflict instigated by Washington, which demonstrated the weaknesses of the West.
Heavily dependent on Russian gas, “Europe may have shot itself in the foot by joining US sanctions”, warns the Chinese nationalist newspaper Global Times, which refuses to link Brussels-Beijing relations with the crisis between Europeans and Moscow over from Ukraine.
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