EU-China Summit: rhetoric, realities and the need for reciprocity

Echoes with rhetorical ideas such as EU showing deepest concern of alleged human rights violations in Xingjian,Tibet

The 24^th EU-China Summit took place on 7^th December in Beijing, China. This was the first in-person EU-China Summit since 2019. The summit discussed trade, the Ukraine conflict, climate change, alleged human rights violations in Xinjiang and Tibet and the Middle East situation.

The EU and China are major economic partners with $2.3 billion bilateral trade. However, the annual EU trade deficit with China is almost 400 billion euros, and that is a major agenda point as the EU is convincing China on the importance of a more balanced economic relationship with a level-playing field and reciprocity.

EU leaders are extensively using the terms ‘decoupling’ and ‘de-risking’ and reiterating that the EU does not want to de-couple with China but looking for ways to de-risk its situation. The subsidies by China on electric cars and other items have triggered a huge demand for these goods in the EU market, creating risky competition for EU companies. In my opinion, de-risking is a byproduct of decoupling, to minimise the risk and secure the EU market. The only practical solution, albeit an impossible one, is decoupling otherwise de-risking is just a buzzword that echoes the helplessness. The volume of trade between the EU and China is huge, having the equation of high demand by the EU and consistency and cheaper supply by China. This de-risking idea requires an alternate market to fulfil the demands of EU countries.

The problem is that a high dependency on China does not allow EU member countries to register their reservation openly because they know decoupling from China will starve their market. That could be the reason why the EU has decided to deal with the issue rhetorically.

The EU-China Summit 2023 was also echoed with rhetorical ideas such as the EU showing its deepest concern about alleged human rights violations in Xingjian and Tibet. Ironically in the same breath, EU reaffirmed its support for Israel and its right of self-defence.

The West at this juncture of history is missing a very important point: the Western definition of rule-based international order is impractical as the majority of the world population is mainly the global South. The self-serving analogy of good vs evil is a reduction conceptual notion. While the EU has human rights concerns over alleged human rights abuse in China, elsewhere it can turn a blind eye and play the rhetorical game of self-defence, right to fight, war for peace, and so on. For the EU it could have been high time to present itself as truly humane by being impartial toward human atrocities. Nonetheless they again chose to rely on their conformational biases and supported Israel while condemning Hamas.

Another important point is: what does the EU mean by free trade if it cannot compete in an open market? And why does it have an utmost desire of de-coupling with China at a time when it is throwing rhetoric of de-risking? Does de-risking mean that China must initiate a philanthropy trade keeping in mind that the EU market is fragile and Chinese traders must not take advantage of the trade gap? My argument may sound trivial but that’s the truth of the day. If the EU encourages China to triple its renewable energy capacity and double its green energy efficiency by 2030, and wants China to join the global methane pledges then the EU must do the same and stop putting the maximum share in global warming.

I think it is the right time for EU to see the actual picture of the global paradigm by putting its conformational biases aside. Next year there will be the EU parliament elections. I hope the people elected will have the ability to overthrow the rotten memory of Henry Kissinger and start a new chapter of relations with the global South with a non-Western perspective. The only solution to have a rule-based word order is to understand and respect non-Western perspectives otherwise many of these summits and their rhetoric will come and go; but without actual mediation, nothing tangible will ever come out of it. Take the example of the current EU-China summit and smile and calm at the face of President Xi Jinping. I infer that Xi’s smile was sending a message to EU leaders: ‘You are welcome to say anything but this is not how things are operating and will operate.’

Published in The Express Tribune, December 12^th, 2023.

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