In a continent once keen on close ties with China, views have grown much warier
Save time by listening to our audio articles as you multitaskRenowned for his political satire, Badiucao grew up in China and now lives in Australia. His works in Prague reflect a view that is widely shared among European governments. It is that the challenge from China—once viewed as distant, ill-defined and less relevant to Europeans than to Americans—is now evident close to home. Shortly before Russia invaded Ukraine, Mr Xi and Mr Putin declared that their friendship had “no limits”.
European countries had been getting uneasy about China long before the war in Ukraine. Several had imposed curbs on its investment in critical infrastructure, such as telecoms networks. In 2019 the European Union began calling China a “systemic rival” . Since then, governments that once hesitated to offend China, fearing economic reprisals, have become blunter.
China’s mood has changed, too. No longer do its officials and foreign-policy pundits speak so assuredly of a Europe that is straining at the American leash and that wants to deal with China as a business partner, not a potential enemy. “It would be hard for the, a nationalist tabloid in Beijing, in 2020. China’s state-controlled media now seem less sure.
In an article published in June, Xin Hua, a scholar of European affairs at Shanghai International Studies University, attacked Western assessments that China is “losing Europe”. Since the second world war, he said, European governments had usually “dodged and weaved” between China and America, and would continue doing so. In Europe, however, many analysts see an enduring shift towards China-scepticism. China’s support for Russia is only part of the problem.
The unravelling of China’s European diplomacy is clear even in central and eastern Europe, where since 2012 it had been trying to create a bridgehead on the continent. In 2012 it launched a forum in the region for discussing trade, investment and cultural ties, calling it the “16 plus one” . Eleven of the members, including the Czech Republic, were also in thecountry, Greece, became the first member from outside post-communist Europe.
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