In a virtual meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Chinese President Xi Jinping on Tuesday called on the West to reduce the sanctions imposed against Russia.
The current sanctions, Xi said, would “drag down” the global economy. But while Xi said he “deeply regretted” the war in Ukraine, he did not directly condemn Russia.
Xi’s rhetoric reflects the Chinese Communist Party’s growing discomfort over the situation it faces vis-a-vis Russia, Ukraine, and China’s broader relationship with the West. As the West has unified in support of a robust sanctions response to Russia’s war on Ukraine, Beijing has found itself caught between its close relationship with Moscow and its need to retain good relations with the European Union.
This isn’t an easy balancing act. The EU, after all, is deeply unhappy that Russia is currently destroying the principle of post-Second World War democratic sovereignty on the European continent.
True, the very fact of Scholz’s and Macron’s summit illustrates Xi’s continuing influence with EU leaders. Desperate to attract continued Chinese investment, those leaders are willing to turn a blind eye to many Chinese human rights abuses, Beijing’s threats to Taiwan, and even Xi’s coercion of other EU member states. Lithuania, for example, has faced an escalating Chinese trade embargo in response to its support for Taiwan’s democracy. The small Baltic democracy has received only weak support from other EU powers.
Yet Xi’s long-term objective is to secure an EU foreign policy separated from U.S. efforts to resist Chinese imperialism. And to that, Xi cannot simply throw trade deals at Macron and Scholz. He must also establish at least some support from EU parliamentarians. The EU parliament has taken a far more skeptical stance toward China than have the individual European national heads of state. Indeed, a much vaunted EU-China trade deal languishes without the prospect of near-term approval due to EU parliamentarians’ concerns over China’s human rights policies. Beijing’s tolerance for Russia’s invasion has only exacerbated these concerns.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry doesn’t quite know how to escape Xi’s self-imposed Catch-22.
At the Chinese Foreign Ministry’s daily briefing on Tuesday, Bloomberg asked whether Beijing believed that Russia had invaded Ukraine, something Beijing has been unwilling to admit thus far. The question earned a prickly response from spokesman Zhao Lijian, who failed to answer but insisted that China’s policy is “clear and consistent.” Zhao then proceeded to rant about a nonexistent U.S. military biological weapons program that Russia claims to have discovered in Ukraine. According to Zhao, “biological military activities of the U.S. in Ukraine are merely the tip of the iceberg” — a laughable claim.
Still, even if Macron and Scholz are not yet ready to do so, the U.S. is turning up the heat on Beijing over its European hypocrisy.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken hit the nail on the head as he visited Lithuania on Monday. “Beijing talks a lot about the importance of upholding the international order, stability, and respecting sovereignty,” Blinken said. “But from its coercion of [Lithuania] to its failure thus far to condemn Moscow’s flagrant violation of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine today and in 2014, Beijing’s actions are speaking much louder than its words.”
Indeed.
The ultimate challenge for the U.S., then, is to make China own its hypocrisy in every international forum.
U.S. officials should keep asking China whether the Russian invasion of Ukraine is an invasion. They should insist that European voters and their parliamentarians deserve an answer as to how China’s much vaunted offers of “win-win cooperation” and “respect” are compatible with China’s tolerance for Russia’s annihilation of Europe’s democratic security. And they should ask EU leaders why they believe China can be trusted as a 21st-century partner for prosperity and peace.
