China has launched a charm offensive towards Europe. At several meetings with EU country representatives, Chinese top diplomats have promoted China as a more reliable partner than Washington, a message that has also been conveyed when EU representatives have visited Beijing.
China has always wanted to see a split across the Atlantic and that Europe should not hold itself so close to the US. They keep pointing out that they want Europe to act more as an independent actor and have strategic autonomy, says Alexis von Sydow, analyst at the National Knowledge Centre on China at the Foreign Policy Institute.
And if the war ends, Europe might actually find it easier to approach China, since Europe's biggest problem with the giant country in recent years has been that Beijing has economically supported the aggressor Russia during the Ukraine war. And from Ukraine's perspective, China is seen as a party they cannot afford to have a bad relationship with.
"Main Beneficiary"
Ukraine's former Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba visited China last summer and met with China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi. They discussed, among other things, the war and China's possible role in a peace process.
According to Kuleba, China is the country that would benefit the most from US President Donald Trump's swing in terms of support for Ukraine.
China will be the main beneficiary of Trump's second presidency – it's not perhaps the goal that President Trump is striving for. But there are very good reasons to believe that China, by showing patience and willingness to embrace other countries, including Ukraine, will reap great benefits from what is happening, Kuleba said recently to The South China Morning Post.
He does not see an immediate role for China in potential peace talks and says that China does not need to be particularly active at present, but just show support.
It doesn't mean opening up the whole of Europe and creating a free trade zone with China, but there is plenty of room to maneuver. The space was closed due to the US-Europe alliance. Now that the alliance is gone, this space is open, he says to the newspaper.
"Not So Genuine"
The Ukraine war has been going on for over three years, but China has still not condemned Russia's full-scale invasion. Instead, the country has wanted to appear as a neutral party that both Russia and Ukraine can listen to.
China's charm offensive comes after several years in which Europe has tried to take a tough stance with, among other things, tariffs and investment screenings to handle the risks involved in a relationship with China. That China would suddenly stand for the rule-based world order based on certain values, norms, institutions, and rules created to govern states' actions globally is not self-evident.
China has never stood for that. This is really opportunism from China's side, says Alexis von Sydow.
A couple of years ago, China presented a list of twelve points for a political settlement in the Ukraine war, but it has not led to concrete progress.
The fact is that China has not wanted to go in and really press Russia to create some form of peace, because at the bottom, it's not so genuine.
Vulnerable Situation
Recently, Donald Trump called the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky a dictator, a highly publicized verbal spat broke out in the White House, and then the US announced a pause in its military support to Ukraine, which has been defending itself against Russia's aggressive war for over three years. Altogether, a very clear shift in attitude towards the Ukraine war from the US side.
But Europe still has a strong interest in maintaining a good relationship with the Western superpower.
You can think that it's not our fault that this relationship is going so badly now. It's not, in fact, but we will partly find ourselves in a much worse and more vulnerable situation towards Russia, and partly have greater economic dependence on China, if this transatlantic bond breaks, says von Sydow.
A conflict between the US and Europe would be destructive for our capacity to protect ourselves against China, and that should really be the top priority.
The superpowers China and Russia have been approaching each other in recent years. Both countries claim to advocate for a "multipolar world order" as an alternative to US dominance.
Just before the Winter OS in Beijing 2022 and only weeks before Russia's large-scale invasion of Ukraine, the authoritarian leaders of Russia and China, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, met. They then emphasized that the relationship between the countries was better than in a long time and distanced themselves from NATO expansion near Russia and the US's "negative influence on peace and stability" in the Asia-Pacific region.
In February 2023, China presented a twelve-point program where the parties in the Ukraine war were, among other things, urged to be restrained and start talks as soon as possible.
During the war, China has increased its import of Russian oil and gas from Russia, while Western countries have imposed sanctions on Russia.
China has chosen not to officially condemn Russia's invasion of Ukraine and has taken a wait-and-see approach to the war.
Source: TT, UI.se
