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Biden and Merkel in focus: system rivals, competitors or partners - will the EU and USA now find a China plan?

2021-02-16T17:28:18.638Z


The emerging China is forcing Europe and the USA to readjust their China policy. Will they pull together? The first answers could be found at the two top meetings this week.


The emerging China is forcing Europe and the USA to readjust their China policy.

Will they pull together?

The first answers could be found at the two top meetings this week.

  • The EU and the USA are looking for a common China strategy.

  • Perhaps there will be initial answers at the NATO defense ministers' meeting and the G7 summit this week.

  • China overtook the US as the EU's largest trading partner in 2020.

Brussels / Washington - The EU and the USA are wrestling over the future course of their China policy.

Basically, after the new US President Joe Biden takes office, both sides would like to work more closely together again on all important global issues - this includes dealing with China.

But the approaches are still different.

Biden sees the US, as he recently said, in an "extreme competition" with Beijing and wants to confront China.

By contrast, the EU has so far relied on a strategy that distinguishes between opportunities for cooperation - for example in climate protection - and areas of conflict that are delimited from them.

The virtual meeting of NATO defense ministers this week as well as the virtual G7 summit on Friday with Biden could provide the first clues as to how much the EU and the US can now agree on a joint approach to China.

"China and Russia are at the forefront of an authoritarian counter-pressure against the rule-based international order," said NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg on Monday in Brussels.

The statement shows how NATO is increasingly expanding its focus on Asia - and that the alliance certainly shares the Americans' concerns about China's sometimes aggressive behavior.

EU and China: competition, rivalry or cooperation

"For the EU, China is a negotiating partner for cooperation, an economic competitor and a system rival," says the new transatlantic agenda of the EU Commission that was launched after Biden's election.

This triad has since become the official EU language regulation.

"As open democratic societies and market economies, the EU and the US agree on the strategic challenge that arises from China's growing international assertiveness - even if we do not always agree on the best way to achieve this," said it continues in the paper.

The situation is complicated because both the US and China are campaigning for the EU.

And Brussels has to coordinate with the member states, who do not necessarily pull together.

Hungary, for example, is cooperating outside of Brussels on vaccination policy with Beijing and ordered five million doses of the Chinese Sinopharm vaccine at the end of January.

And Biden has not yet formulated his future China policy in detail.

+

Joe Biden and Xi Jinping know each other from their time as Vice Presidents.

Now Biden would like to involve the Europeans in a common policy towards China.

© Lintao Zhang / Pool / AFP

China's President Xi Jinping wants to avoid an anti-China bloc in any case.

At the virtual world economic forum (WEF) at the end of January, he warned political and business leaders of a "new cold war".

Such a confrontation would "end in a dead end," said Xi - without naming the United States.

One day after Joe Biden established the formula of “extreme competition”, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi called on the EU, in an interview with the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Josep Borrell, to act “independently and autonomously”.

Which means: You shouldn't let the US tie you into an anti-China alliance.

Borrell emphasized to Wang the “strong ties” between the EU and the US and welcomed Biden's “commitment to cooperation with international partners and multilateral institutions”.

But that says little at first.

EU and China: Macron and Merkel are against an anti-China alliance

The EU itself seems to be looking for the right course somewhere between the old and the new great power.

But at least France and Germany do not want a policy clearly aimed at containing China.

French President Emmanuel Macron recently took a position against an anti-China alliance in an interview with the US think tank Atlantic Council.

"A situation in which everyone unites against China is the scenario with the highest possible conflict potential," said Macron.

This will cause China to continue to reduce cooperation.

At the same time, however, he rejected a scenario of the same distance between China and the USA: "This makes no sense, since we and the USA are not system rivals." Dealing with human rights a system rival of the EU.

Chancellor Angela Merkel had previously spoken out against having to choose between the USA and China.

In her telephone conversation with Biden, she had nevertheless promised the US president support for his planned summit of democratic states.

On the day after Biden's first foreign policy speech at the beginning of February, Merkel praised: “Yesterday it was very good news that America is simply returning diplomatically and making a powerful appearance.

That benefits everyone, I am deeply convinced of that. ”The goodwill is definitely there.

EU and China: investment agreement instead of trade war

In the economy, too, the strategies of the USA and the EU are still divergent.

While the Americans are in a trade war with China and are pushing Chinese technology companies such as telecommunications equipment manufacturers Huawei and ZTE out of their market, the EU is relying on cooperation.

After Biden was elected - but before he took office - the EU concluded an investment agreement with China that had been negotiated for years and which has some opponents.

Critics in the USA complain that Brussels did not wait for Biden's inauguration.

European critics, for example in the EU Parliament, complain that it does not take sufficient account of workers' rights and the issue of forced labor.

The ratification of the agreement is therefore not yet sealed.

Both sides have yet to finalize the text, which requires the approval of the European Parliament and all European heads of state and government.

In general, American critics accuse the EU, and especially Germany, of focusing too much on the economy when dealing with China.

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Containers in the Erenhot logistics center in Inner Mongolia: China overtook the USA as the EU's largest trading partner in 2020.

© Lian Zhen / picture alliance / dpa / Xinhua

This fits in with the fact that China overtook the US as the EU's most important trading partner for the first time in 2020.

As the EU statistics agency Eurostat announced on Monday, the volume of trade with the People's Republic was 586 billion euros in 2020, of which exports to the value of 202.5 billion euros and imports of 383.5 billion euros.

Trade with the United States was 555 billion euros.

China's economy recovered from the corona crisis much faster than that of the USA.

In addition, the former US President Donald Trump had not only imposed punitive tariffs on China, but also on certain imports from the EU.

The EU returned the favor with billions in counter tariffs.

Such problems between the EU and the USA should, however, no longer exist in the future.

Peter Beyer, the Chancellor's transatlantic coordinator, spoke to the

Reuters

news

agency

on Monday in

favor of renewed talks on a trade agreement between the EU and the USA.

(ck / with dpa and AFP)

Source: merkur

All news articles on 2021-02-16

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