BERLIN – The saga of Chinese spy balloons has thrown relations between Washington and Beijing into fresh trouble. For European governments, that causes all kinds of trouble.
With relations between the two superpowers deteriorating, the White House is likely to come under intense pressure from EU leaders to take sides and join forces against China, just as they look to improve tangled ties with Beijing. were expecting.
And then there is war.
Russia is preparing a major offensive in Ukraine in the next few weeks, but EU diplomats fear the balloon incident will distract President Joe Biden’s team at exactly the time when US support for Kyiv is at its peak. more will be required.
A European diplomat said, “We never expected 2023 to be easy, but it has been a really tough start.”
On Saturday, the US shot down a Chinese surveillance balloon with an air-to-air missile from an F-22 stealth fighter jet off the coast of South Carolina.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken indefinitely postponed a trip to Beijing scheduled for this week, the first such trip planned for a US cabinet-level official under Biden’s presidency.
Photos of the incident have been circulated on social media in dramatic video footage, mostly taken by excited onlookers cheering the dramatic display of military power.
Beijing insists the giant solar panel-powered object was a “civilian aeroplane” that went in the wrong direction while conducting “mainly meteorological” research. In response to the missile attack, the Chinese government expressed “grave dissatisfaction” and protested against the US use of force to attack unmanned, civilian craft. It added that it would “reserve the right to take further necessary response.”
US foreign policy, while still heavily invested in supporting Ukraine militarily, may be distracted by acrimonious conflicts with Beijing. Right-wing US politicians have been calling for more attention to China since Russia invaded Ukraine a year ago.
“As the US-China rivalry intensifies, there will be more pressure on Europeans, whose attitudes to China are very diverse, to take sides,” said Ricardo Borges de Castro, head of Europe in the World Program at the European Policy Center. Brussels-based think tank. “The reality is that, if the world becomes dominated by two poles – the US and China – the EU and European peoples will need to take sides as long as Europe’s safety and defense depend on the US umbrella.”
Meanwhile, according to Ukrainian officials, Russia is expected to launch a massive offensive in just a few weeks, when the harshest winter weather is over.
“Washington will be busy with Beijing for a while,” a senior EU diplomat said on Sunday. “This is not good news for the EU as Russia is still the main concern.”
bad time
The incident also comes at an inconvenient moment for Europe as senior officials prepare to re-engage with Beijing.
The EU’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, is understood to be planning a trip to Beijing in April, when he is also expected to travel to Japan for a G7 ministerial meeting. Separately, French President Emmanuel Macron has also announced his intention to meet President Xi Jinping in the Chinese capital earlier this year; He would be interested in getting a top European Commission official to join him, according to an official with knowledge of the plans.
The latest US-China flare-up means we now have to see how badly China reacts, and whether [planned] The visits will be perceived as a propaganda success by Beijing in divisive transatlantic ties,” a diplomat said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the subject.
“In the wake of the Ukraine war, China policy coordination between the two sides [the Atlantic is] is losing steam,” said Reinhard Butikofer, chairman of the European Parliament’s delegation on relations with China. “While Washington DC steps up pressure against Beijing especially on the technical front and with reference to Taiwan, Brussels, Berlin and Paris show new hesitation.”
Complicating matters further is Beijing’s apparent lack of interest in helping the West pressure Vladimir Putin to end the war in Ukraine.
Worse, according to a report in wall street journalChina has emerged as a major supplier of dual-use goods to Russia, providing technology that Moscow’s military needs to prosecute its offensive. According to the article, Chinese state-owned defense companies have shipped navigation equipment, jamming technology and fighter-jet parts to Russian government-owned defense companies.
European leaders have repeatedly warned Beijing not to aid Moscow militarily.
Two diplomats told POLITICO that Wang Yi, China’s top foreign policy official, has abandoned plans to visit Brussels even though he is due to visit Germany for the Munich Security Conference in February.
Europe’s response to the balloon incident remained muted. The EU only noted the US right to defend its airspace. “The safety and security of airspace is an issue of national security and is therefore the competence, responsibility and prerogative of the specific state or states,” an EU spokesman said on Sunday.
Some European countries publicly supported the Biden administration’s decision, highlighting a general sense of reluctance to provoke Beijing. One of the exceptions was Estonia, where Foreign Minister Urmas Reinslu retweeted a BBC report about the fall of the balloon, saying: “I support the operation of the United States of America to defend our sovereignty. Strongly condemn the provocations threatening national security.
Other US allies did not back down. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau praised the operation, Tweet “Canada strongly supports this action – we will continue to work together … on our safety and defence.”
South Korean Foreign Minister Park Jin said during a visit to Washington, “I understand adequately the decision to postpone the Secretary [Blinken]Visit to China and I think China should give a swift and very honest explanation of what happened.
Tom Tugendhat, Britain’s security secretary and long-time Beijing skeptic, called for concern over other forms of Chinese threats. “Worried about being spied on from the skies? See what some apps are collecting on your phone and consider your cyber security. Some risks hit too close to home,” he Tweeted,
EU foreign policy in 2023 could be defined by which ends first: European indecision on China, or America’s appetite to provide Europe’s defence.