German Chancellor Angela Merkel faces an embarrassing revolt against her China trade policy. While Merkel wants to conclude a massive European Union-China trade deal imminently, a rising chorus of voices is obstructing the agreement.
Their concern is clear: The EU cannot give China the political and economic benefits of a trade deal if Beijing continues to wage an ethnocidal campaign against its own people. EU officials close to Merkel had been confident that an agreement was near. But their hopes are now being dashed amid concerns about the deal that have been raised by the incoming Biden administration and an EU parliamentary vote that demanded that no deal be ratified without addressing forced labor concerns. Those concerns situate most specifically on China’s use of its Uighur minority population as de facto slave labor.
But the really big problem for Merkel is that France has now shifted its position. While President Emmanuel Macron had supported a trade deal, in recent days, his ministers have adopted a different tone. Sensing that the political winds were shifting against a deal, France now says that forced labor concerns must be addressed. This has China panicking. According to the South China Morning Post, top Chinese Communist officials are now urgently pressuring other EU leaders to get a deal done. They want to conclude any agreement before Joe Biden enters office and provides carrots to the EU to avoid such a deal.
China’s recovery strategy is likely too late.
Public attention has now been drawn to those parliamentarians pushing to force the issue of China’s use of forced labor. Considering recent reporting on that forced labor program — it involves cotton picking practices in the vein of American 18th-century slavery, for example — it’s hard to see how EU opinion doesn’t shift further against Merkel. There’s more. A leading parliamentarian in the anti-deal camp is now warning that he won’t support an agreement unless China verifies it has actually suspended forced labor. This is an important distinction. After all, Communist China is very happy to sign agreements and then systematically break them; its record toward Hong Kong, climate change issues, and the ASEAN bloc are all evidence of its deceptive strategy.
The EU must stand firm.
Few issues cut as closely to the heart of what the EU is supposed to be about as the right of people to live and work freely. This should always be a defining red-line issue for the EU. That it is not for Angela Merkel proves an old truth — namely, that Merkel has always been the most ridiculous figurehead for liberal internationalism. Merkel values stability and economics above all else. It’s sad.
