Guns before butter? Multi-dimensional diplomacy in China-Europe relations
Guns before butter? Multi-dimensional diplomacy in China-Europe relations
WRITTEN BY DR WILLIAM HURST
17 May 2023
April saw a flurry of activity around China’s relationships with Europe. Early in the month, French President Emmanuel Macron and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen made a high-profile visit to China. Macron, particularly, made several public statements and more subtle gestures during the visit that bolstered a clear French narrative and strategy of relations with China, attracting criticism from observers in the US and the UK. Later, China’s ambassador in Paris Lu Shaye made several apparent misstatements that seemed to suggest China did not fully recognise or accept the sovereignty of post-Soviet states, including Ukraine. Near the end of the month, Chinese National Chairman Xi Jinping called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, reportedly speaking with him cordially for over an hour. China and key European actors have been playing a multi-dimensional game, trying to manoeuvre around thorny issues in some areas to open potential avenues for progress in others. This has not paid off (at least in the short run), as both sides have also been keen to send one another strong signals that have come at the cost of greater conciliation.
Dimensions of China-Europe relations
First, it is important to identify what factors are in play on which dimensions of relations. Complex countries with global interests and multiple agendas do not just deal with one another on a single level or over one specific type or subset of issues. In general, there are three dimensions of relations between European or North American countries and China: security, economics and trade, and values or ideology. Simply put, states cannot enjoy productive ties in one area while competing or confronting each other in both the others. In important ways, European and American strategies towards China have diverged over the past several decades.
American debates, about whether to link the deepening of economic ties and bestowal of ‘most favoured nation’ trade status to China’s progress on human rights issues as assessed by the US government, began in the wake of 4 June 1989. After sometimes acrimonious exchanges that occasionally pitted then-President Bill Clinton against Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi and other influential Democrats, a policy of de-linking was adopted. This allowed the United States to lay aside disagreements and discomfort over values and ideology to pursue a vigorous economic agenda with China, even as the two countries faced one another down over many security issues (for example, Taiwan, North Korea, etc.). European governments have not always had this option.
The bet that security fears could be addressed to allow the resumption of progress on trade did not pay off. China lost a significant opportunity to re-open more fully to the world and deepen its economic ties with arguably its most important trading partner (the Eurozone).
For a variety of reasons (notably the stronger presence of domestic and pan-European political coalitions in support of human rights, labour, and environmentalist agendas), it has been harder for European leaders to set aside concerns over values or ideology. But it has been relatively easier for them to de-emphasise security concerns or tensions while pursuing trade and economic partnerships with China. Indeed, to put it bluntly, many European states do not consistently perceive that they have significant security interests at stake when dealing with China. This new great power may not always be friendly, but it is located very far from Europe and any area that might be defined as, for instance, an Italian or Belgian sphere of influence or strategic interest. This leaves France and Britain as something of outliers, European states that perceive themselves to be global powers and players with vital security interests and agendas across Asia and in the Pacific.
With things already tense, Russia’s attack on Ukraine complicated matters for all European countries vis-à-vis China, but for France in particular. The near-universal agreement across the continent that Russia had made itself a Europe-wide security threat and competitor, combined with NATO resolve and cooperation in support of Ukraine, made it especially difficult to accommodate China’s declared neutrality in the conflict and particularly its statements and behaviour that appeared at times to indicate at least a degree of support for Russia.
Russia’s war in Ukraine blocks critical parts of the chessboard
Indeed, China could ill afford to allow Russia to lose or — worse yet — Putin’s regime to collapse. Eschewing formal alliances, China’s baseline grand strategy since at least the 1970s has relied on balancing great power interests and threats. With Japan and the United States firmly unified in opposition to any Chinese assertion and likely (should it come to that) in defence of Taiwan, Russia and (to a lesser degree) India are vital players. The problem historically had always been that they were too close to each other (and united against China). More recently, the challenge has flipped somewhat to become one of keeping India closer to Russia and deterring it from moving too close to the US and the West. This has taken on a heightened significance since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has produced tighter and more robust NATO unity while throwing up serious questions as to whether Russia can help balance the US and Japan in Asia.
The war makes China’s position more difficult. While still fearing a Russian defeat or collapse, China is genuine in its desire to remain neutral. Ukraine is a vital trading and sometimes security partner with which China has had longstanding friendly ties governed, in particular, by an important bilateral treaty signed in 2013. China’s much-vaunted first aircraft carrier was purchased from Ukraine. It is not a relationship China wishes to abandon or could easily walk away from. This leaves China with the uncomfortable task of balancing its relations with both Ukraine and Russia. To many external observers, it has appeared to tilt rather toward the Russian side (at least too much so for Europeans to excuse or ignore).
Hence Macron’s gambit: if Xi Jinping could be persuaded to take steps to assure European leaders of China’s non-support for Russia, perhaps security concerns could be reduced to the point of allowing economic and trade relations to recover and debates around values, human rights, the environment, and other issues to settle back into a pre-2020 normal. Xi, for his part, clearly did not want to compromise in terms of China’s self-conception and presentation of neutrality in the Ukraine war and, more importantly, sought to avoid being seen to capitulate in any way to European demands or instructions. He thus declined to make any firm promises during the visit and Macron, von der Leyen, and the political and business leaders who had accompanied them returned from Beijing essentially empty-handed.
Toward a multi-dimensional denouement?
In this context, Ambassador to France Lu Shaye’s comments on 22 April were a deliberate signal. China would not be pressured into backtracking on its policies and would continue to prioritise balance of power politics over assuaging European concerns on security. It was likely no accident that the message was delivered by China’s top representative to Paris, rather than any other European capital. But, of course, the format allowed for immediate public walking back of the comments to prevent any undue escalation (not unlike the US State Department’s walking back of President Biden’s “misstatements” on Taiwan).
Once the signal was received — in Paris, Brussels, Moscow, Kyiv, and elsewhere — Xi was free to make the call to Zelenskyy that quite possibly had always been planned, which he did less than four days later. As we head deeper into May and with talk of peace negotiations heating back up, China is predictably seeking to position itself as one of the few countries enjoying positive relations with both Russia and Ukraine. This is of a piece with moves and statements to underscore Chinese neutrality and Beijing’s calls to avoid new sanctions and de-escalate the conflict.
None of this is exactly what most European countries wanted to see or hear. The bet that security fears could be addressed to allow the resumption of progress on trade did not pay off. China lost a significant opportunity to re-open more fully to the world and deepen its economic ties with arguably its most important trading partner (the Eurozone). But, China has held fast to its balance of power strategy and Europe will hold firm in its commitment to support for Ukraine, sanctions on Russia, and criticism of China on values issues — and all the hubbub around the events of the last month appears particularly overblown.
DISCLAIMER: All views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent that of the 9DASHLINE.com platform.
Author biography
Dr William Hurst is the Chong Hua professor of Chinese politics and Deputy Director of the Centre for Geopolitics at the University of Cambridge. He is the author of “Ruling Before the Law: the Politics of Legal Regimes in China and Indonesia” (Cambridge 2018) and “The Chinese Worker after Socialism” (Cambridge 2009), in addition to dozens of academic journal articles and book chapters, op-eds, essays, and shorter pieces. He is currently at work on several book projects about, respectively, land politics and long-term trajectories of development in Mainland China, Taiwan, Indonesia, and Malaysia, the politics and history of the South China Sea, and US-China Relations since 1900. Image credit: Wikimedia Commons/Dati Bendo, European Commission.