Undercutting Macron, China proves its Ukraine peace plan was always a fiction
Tom Rogan
Video Embed
China is furious at the European Union’s threat to sanction Chinese firms evading EU sanctions in order to support Russia’s war in Ukraine. Chinese President Xi Jinping’s minions are warning that any sanctions will result in a suspension of Chinese efforts to facilitate peace between Russia and Ukraine.
In practice, this threat is not terribly important — at least not for Ukraine. After all, China’s peace efforts in relation to the war in Ukraine are patently hollow. They exist not to foster a just and durable peace but rather for two more unpleasant purposes.
First, to provide diplomatic cover for China’s European interests amid Beijing’s great support for Russia. Second, to provide cover for the China appeasement bloc in the EU that is led by French President Emmanuel Macron. That bloc is embarrassed to admit that their appeasement of Beijing on key matters such as Taiwan is driven by a desire to maximize Chinese investment. The bloc is also unwilling to admit that China shamelessly uses Macron’s narrative for its own pernicious agenda. In turn, Macron and company pretend their concessionary stance is necessary in order to secure China’s cooperation on the EU priorities of confronting climate change and ending the war in Ukraine. Put simply, Beijing’s “We’re working for Ukraine peace” narrative allows Macron to pretend that he isn’t actually prostrating himself to the free world’s greatest threat but rather that he is showing strategic foresight.
Of course, considering China’s rampant construction of carbon-heavy coal plants and the paper-thin nature of China’s peace proposals and effective efforts, it takes a willful ignorance not to see Macron’s mirage for what it is: a quite pathetic deception.
Macron’s bloc never admits the basic truth: that were the EU willing to leverage its cooperative strength in demand that China break with Russia over Ukraine, Beijing would come under immense pressure to do so. The trade statistics tell the tale: The EU imports from China nearly three times the amount that it exports to China. If those EU imports go away, Beijing has a big problem.
Still, that Beijing is now openly threatening to cut its peace efforts on Ukraine shows how truly vacuous those efforts have always been.
Take the editorial that Beijing’s Global Times newspaper published on Wednesday. Supervised by Wang Yi’s powerful Central Foreign Affairs Commission, the Global Times is used to broadcast Beijing’s positions to the West. Focused on the ongoing visit of Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang (Wang’s deputy) to Europe, the editorial warned against any EU sanctions on Chinese companies. As the Global Times put it, “experts warned that … the new round of sanctions could deal a heavy blow to bilateral ties, and thwart cooperation between China and Europe on solving the Ukraine crisis.” Other elements of the editorial repeated the same Ukraine threat.
Beijing’s ire here flows not from German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who remains a happy camper in the Macron-appeasement bloc. Instead, Beijing is angry with German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock. A rare European voice of courage against Sino-Russian aggression, Baerbock used a press conference with Qin this week to double down on the EU’s sanctions threat. That China is leveraging the Ukraine issue is nevertheless notable. Just as Beijing dangles new climate change commitments so as to extract Western political concessions in other areas, its willingness to threaten Ukraine shows the ardent realpolitik nature of Xi’s foreign policy.
Beijing has threatened Canada, South Korea and the Philippines, and France (which, predictably, didn’t make much of a fuss) in recent weeks over those nations’ mild complaints over varied Chinese acts of diplomatic offense. In the same way, Beijing now dangles its dagger against peace in Europe unless said peace comes with the EU’s political submission. It’s shameless and morally repugnant.
Unless more EU leaders can find Baerbock’s moral courage and strategic clarity, however, China’s blackmail gambit may well succeed.