Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian on Monday brushed off European Union complaints about treatment by Beijing, instead touting half-a-century’s progress in economic ties.
However, recent remarks by the EU’s top envoy suggest a thaw may be elusive—even as Beijing courts Brussels in a bid to capitalize on a growing rift with the United States.
[…]
Speaking at a Shanghai event on Friday, EU Ambassador to China Jorge Toledo echoed the long-standing concerns of many European firms about preferential treatment of local competitors in the Chinese market.
“We have not been taken seriously when it comes to trade barriers,” Toledo said. “Market access barriers [for European companies in China] are not going down. They’re going up.”
“We strongly feel that we not only do not have a level playing field for our companies in China, that the situation is not improving … there is something that has to be done,” Toledo added.
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The trade dispute between China and the EU escalated last October after Brussels raised tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles to as high as 45.3 percent, citing concerns over overcapacity that undercuts local manufacturers.
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The two sides also remain at odds over material support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, with European officials saying Chinese authorities haven’t done enough to curb dual-use exports that support Moscow’s war machine.
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Grzegorz Stec, analyst with the Mercator Institute for China Studies’ Brussels office, wrote in February: "Beijing is betting that pressure from Washington will send Europe into the arms of China to counterbalance trans-Atlantic tensions.
“Despite such views from Beijing, the lacking trust and persisting fundamental divergences of interests between China and Europe, even with Trump in the picture, mean there is a limit to any potential rapprochement.”
[…]
Until China trades with Russia, i will do my best to avoid trading with China. Pretty sure this sentiment is shared throughout europe.
Europe’s gonna have to choose to either:
- support Ukraine and drop China and Russia
- support Russia and China and drop Ukraine
It’s difficult seeing a path forwards where supporting Ukraine and China simutaneously makes any modicum of sense
Edit:
I’m personally of the opinion in supporting Ukraine (Slava Ukrani!🌻) and dropping China and RussiaIf you don’t support Ukraine, the continent will face the consequences. Ukraine is fighting on Europes behalf.
I don‘t think it even should be a choice. If Ukraine falls we‘ll have a lot more problems on the continent and have to prepare for further Russian expansion as well as Chinese aggression. It‘s just not worth to give up Ukraine because we‘ll get nothing in return in the long run. Evil is evil and what they‘re doing to Ukraine, they‘d to to everyone else.
How about:
We support Ukraine
We drop Russia (we don’t need that gas and oil anyway, it’s 2025, we have the technology to ditch fossil fuels, common!) as long as Putin and other fascists like him are in power.
We negotiate and trade with China. We do not support it, but we do not actively fight it either. We try to push it further from Russia if possible.
Dropping China altogether does not seem plausible in the near future. We need to learn how to deal with China. We have a lot of leverage, especially with Trump in power and the trade war escalating further after stagnation under Biden.
I hate to say that, but China doesn’t appear to be a reliable partner (which countries are China’s allies, if any?).
The government in Beijing pursues its own agenda and its own agenda only. That’s not a good base for a lasting and mutually beneficial relationship.
According to Chinese state-controlled media outlet South China Morning Post, for example, China’s Xi Jinping kicked off his state visit to Russia this week by thanking Moscow for supporting Taiwan’s reunification with mainland China.
In a signed article in Russia’s state-run Rossiyskaya Gazeta newspaper … [Xi Jinping wrote that Taiwan’s] unification [with China] must be upheld as part of the post-war international order … Celebrating the “enduring friendship” between Moscow and Beijing, he said the two countries had supported each other since World War II …
Russia’s war in Ukraine and China’s aggression against Taiwan are closely linked, at least for China. Beijing wants control over Taiwan (and supposedly over the South China Sea and other neighbouring areas in Asia, including a part of Siberia which is currently Russian territory).
[Edit typo.]
