Values ​​and interests in the relationship with China

Chinese President Xi Jinping at the National People's Assembly on March 8.NICOLAS ASFOURI / AFP

For the first time since the Tiananmen massacre in 1989, the European Union has deployed its sanctions system in retaliation for serious human rights violations by the People's Republic of China in Xinjiang province against the Muslim Uighur minority.

The sanctions are directed against four high-ranking officials, responsible for the organization of the internment in the camps, the interrogations and the reeducation of hundreds of thousands of citizens, and a public institution linked to the organization of an action that has been classified as a genocide by various governments, parliaments and NGOs.

Three countries of the Atlantic Alliance (the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada), have joined the Brussels sanctions, which also affect individuals from Myanmar, Russia, South Sudan, North Korea, Eritrea and Libya, and have received as a response by Beijing, the imposition of arbitrary reprisals, also of an individual nature, against European public figures without any responsibility in relations with China.

The European sanctions coincide with the hardening of relations between Washington and the regimes of Moscow and Beijing after the presidential replacement in the White House.

The message from the EU and its allies could not be clearer: authoritarian governments must know that defending interests and maintaining cooperation with the EU will not validate atrocities against dissidents, internal opposition and anti-government minorities.

These are not internal and sovereign actions protected against any interference, but rather they are acts that violate international legality and before which, according to the founding principles of the EU and its treaties, the use of sanctions is contemplated as an instrument to support the diplomatic dialogue.

The effectiveness of such a combination, demonstrated in the laborious negotiation of the nuclear agreement with Iran - unfortunately ruined by Trump - should act as a stimulus to build new relations with China and Russia, more balanced and just than those maintained by improvised transactional diplomacy. by the previous presidency with total disregard for democratic vigilance.

The new attitude of the White House towards the Kremlin, the stormy meeting in Anchorage between the Chinese and American diplomats and now the European sanctions mark a turning point in the new East-West relations.

No one is in favor of a new cold war, but it is essential that the new beginning of international relations, marked by the Biden presidency, is guided by the principles and values ​​on which Western democracies and the transatlantic relationship are based.