Opinion: China’s response to European sanctions for its human rights violations has blown up a trade deal seven years in the making and pushed Europe closer to the US, writes Stephen Bartholomeusz
When, on the final day of 2020, China signed a trade pact with the European Union its leadership would have congratulated themselves on their cleverness in sidelining the EU from the escalating confrontation with the US before the incoming Biden administration had a chance to enter the White House. They don’t look quite so clever now.
In March those efforts bore fruit, with the EU joining the US, UK and Canada in sanctioning Chinese individuals and entities for their treatment of the Uighurs. Chancellor Angela Merkel has tried to separate economic issues from political issues in the EU relationship with China to protect and promote Germany’s economy.
There has been unrest in the EU about the extent to which European bidders for companies and public tenders have been undercut by state-owned and/or subsidised entities from China.That’s been sharpened by Montenegro’s pleas for help after taking out a near-$US1 billion loan under that initiative for an extraordinarily expensive new highway to Serbia. Its construction by a Chinese company is years behind schedule.
A meeting of the G7 in London this week – the G7 includes Germany, France and Italy along with Canada, Japan, the UK and the US – re-stated their concerns about China’s human rights violations, its Belt and Road program, its aggression towards Taiwan, its actions in the South China Sea and its economic coercion.
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