The Brief – When little Olaf meets big Xi

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s recent visit to China is an example of a “do-it-alone” foreign policy approach which can only benefit the Middle Kingdom.

There is an apparent division between Europe and the United States over how best to tackle China, a vast country called the Middle or Central Kingdom in different historical times, implying its presumed superior role as the centre of civilisation or even the world.

However, the EU itself has no common approach and in the meantime, China tackles the EU via its weakest — or most naive – members.

In recent years, this has taken place via the 16+1 format, comprising China and 16 Eastern European countries eager to be its European vassals. When Greece joined, 16+1 became 17+1, but then the format started unravelling when Lithuania left, Estonia and Latvia followed, and Czechia said it was no longer an active member.

Then came COVID-19 and Russia’s aggression against Ukraine. No more summits were held, and the initiative probably came to an end.

Belt and Road (BRI) is another Chinese initiative. The Greek port of Piraeus is among China’s biggest acquisitions in Europe under the programme, although critics say Bejing has failed to meet its contractual obligation and invest $300 million in port facilities.

More than a dozen European Union states have signed up for the BRI. Beijing has funded numerous Western Balkans and Eastern Europe projects, including rail lines connecting Belgrade with Budapest.

Hungary was among the largest global recipients of BRI investments, but not all the projects succeeded.

Montenegro took a $1 billion loan from China in 2014 to build a new highway, which remains unfinished to this day and is dubbed “the highway to nowhere.” The debt—at the time more than a third of Montenegro’s annual budget—threatened to bankrupt the country or cause it to hand over a chunk of its territory if it failed to make repayments.

Italy was the only major Western country to have signed up to BRI but left it last year, and its defence minister called the previous government’s decision to join “atrocious”.

When French President Emmanuel Macron visited China one year ago, he took with him Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. When President Xi visited Paris in March 2019, he was received at the Elysée by Macron, but German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Jean-Claude Juncker, the then-Commission president, were also there.

Scholz omitted his compatriot von der Leyen from his delegation, possibly because Beijing sees her as a hawk in international affairs and he didn’t want to antagonise his hosts.

Overall, Scholz’s visit was described by Foreign Policy as “conciliatory in both tone and substance—an approach that leaves Germany, and by extension Europe, at the risk of looking alarmingly naive in the face of the economic and security challenges posed by China”.

The New York Times wrote, “China is hoping to drive a wedge between Europe and the United States by courting leaders such as Mr Scholz”.

Scholz, flanked by a flurry of CEOs of big German companies, including the car industry, was reportedly eager to highlight Germany’s commitment to doing business with China. And Beijing was eager to show it welcomes that message.

Was it by chance that Germany was rattled by China spying scandals a week after Scholz visited?

Was this a signal that he should listen to his coalition partner and foreign minister from the Greens, Annalena Baerbock, who described Xi as a “dictator”? Was it a confirmation of the assessment of human rights groups that his China visit was a wasted opportunity as he did not mention the words ‘human rights’?

In many ways, Scholz’s handling of Beijing is reminiscent of how his predecessor, Angela Merkel, dealt with Moscow, which led to a surge in the use of Russian gas and to a laissez-faire that opened the way for the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

In pleading for ‘open and fair’ competition during his China trip, the chancellor seems to have been unaware that Beijing is only concerned with power politics, wrote Le Monde.

And as for his reported attempt to win the commitment from Xi to take part in an international conference for Ukraine planned in Switzerland in June, Scholz apparently returned empty-handed.

Xi Jinping is expected in Europe at the start of May, on his first trip there since the pandemic. He will make stopovers at the two weakest spots: Victor Orbán’s Hungary and Aleksandar Vučić’s Serbia.

The visit to Belgrade, by the way, is likely to fall on 7 May, the date of the 25th anniversary of NATO’s accidental bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade during the Kosovo war in 1999, which serves as a major event in the two countries’ relations.

Xi will also visit France, as Macron’s ambitions to be the real leader of Europe are becoming ever more obvious. With a rival like Scholz, the bar is not very high.

The Roundup

French President Emmanuel Macron set out his vision for the future of Europe, placing energy, including nuclear, at the core of his approach, in a speech at Sorbonne University on Thursday.

European lawmakers clashed over the future of the Green Deal in a Parliament debate on Wednesday while keeping one eye firmly on the EU elections in June.

Cutting the EU regulatory burden could imply undercutting workers’ protections, Esther Lynch, head of the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC), warned in an interview with Euractiv.

The European Parliament voted on Wednesday to update the EU’s plans for its core transport networks, aiming to boost freight transport by train by setting higher technical standards for core rail routes.

Germany and France want to make collaboration on defence projects more attractive by lessening the administrative burden and avoiding empty-shell projects, according to an informal discussion paper seen by Euractiv.

The EU Parliament adopted new rules for using blood, human tissues, and other substances of human origin. The so-called SoHO regulation (substances of human origin) is an important update of directives over 20 years old.  The focus is on the safety and security of supply.

On Wednesday, the European Parliament voted in favour of an amendment to the Plant Health Regulation, providing for the establishment of a European emergency team to prevent and contain the arrival of crop-damaging pests.

Europe’s inland waterways are not ready for remote-controlled or autonomous vessels, according to inland navigation stakeholders who spoke to Euractiv at the Connecting Europe Days transportation conference in Brussels on 2 April.

To stay on top of EU elections and politics, don’t miss this week’s edition of the EU Elections Decoded.

Look out for…

• EU Competition Day in Brussels on Friday.
• Commissioner Nicolas Schmit participates online in a high-level stakeholder dialogue on social and affordable housing in Europe.
• Commissioner Elisa Ferreira has official meetings in Ankara on Friday.

Views are the author’s

[Edited by Zoran Radosavljevic/Alice Taylor]