 |
By STUART LAU
with PHELIM KINE
Send tips here | Tweet @StuartKLau or @PhelimKine | Subscribe for free | View in your browser
GOOD TUESDAY MORNING. And welcome to China Watcher, this is Stuart Lau reporting from Brussels. Phelim Kine will be reporting from Washington later in the week. More on the Taiwanese election in just a second, but first, here’s the latest on EU-China.
EU-CHINA THIS WEEK
DIPLOMATIC ENGAGEMENT IS STEPPING UP ahead of the EU-China summit on December 7-8, even though expectations so far remains low about what Chinese President Xi Jinping‘s right hand man, Premier Li Qiang, is ready to offer the EU duo, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Charles Michel, her European Council counterpart.
FRANCE GETS FIRST PRIZE: During French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna‘s visit, Beijing announced a new measure of visa-free entry for five EU countries (France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain) on top of Malaysia. These nationals can stay in China for up to 15 days for business, tourism, family visit and transit purposes. The policy will begin on December 1.
Joy for Paris: “Excellent news announced during my visit by my counterpart Wang Yi!" Colonna said on X.
Berlin asks for more: German Ambassador to Beijing Patricia Flor said the decision would facilitate travel to China for many German citizens to an unprecedented extent, but pressed for more countries to be included. "We hope that the Chinese government will implement the measures announced today for all EU member states,” she posted on X.
WANG YI TELLS EUROPE TO KEEP TRADING: “Of course there will be competition in cooperation, but we should not be afraid of cooperation because of competition. The biggest risk we need to get rid of is the uncertainty brought by broad politicization,” Wang said alongside Colonna. “At present, exchanges between China’s business circles are resuming in an all-round way and heating up rapidly. We will listen to the voices of the European business community [and] earnestly solve the problems of investors in China.”
Senior German official in Beijing: Also last week, German Foreign Office State Secretary Thomas Bagger held a political consultation with Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Deng Li in Beijing.
SPECIAL ENVOY TOUR #1 TO HUNGARY: China’s special representative for European affairs Wu Hongbo was in Hungary last week, and met with Balázs Orbán, political director for Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. Wu also met Barna Pál Zsigmond, Hungary’s Deputy Minister of EU affairs. Wu “spoke highly of the Hungarian side’s determination to develop China-Hungary friendship and cooperation,” according to the Chinese Foreign Ministry.
AND TOUR #2 FOCUSED ON EASTERN EUROPE: The Chinese foreign ministry’s special representative for the region Jiang Yu toured Romania, Serbia and North Macedonia last week, and stressed their role as a “springboard” for the Belt and Road Initiative’s integration into the European economy.
HAPPENING TODAY: NATO foreign ministers are meeting in Brussels today and tomorrow, and the “challenges China presents to our security” will be one of the topics to be discussed, according to NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. While saying China isn't an adversary, he added: "But Beijing's actions challenge our security. And we must work together to respond."
BRITISH PM vs EX-PM
SUNAK ON CAMERON: U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak says China has changed since David Cameron's "golden era" of close economic ties with the nation.
"I think if David was here, what he would say is that China today is not the China that he dealt with over a decade ago," Sunak said during a panel discussion at the government's second Global Investment Summit in Hampton Court Palace. "It has changed; it's right that our strategy evolves to take account of that."
Repeating his line: Sunak said the U.K.'s strategy with regards to China could be summarized in three approaches: "protect, align and engage."
"You've got to protect the U.K. against the risks where they manifest themselves," he said, pointing to the government's new National Security and Investment Act which "allows us to block investment in sensitive sectors."
Allies, allies: To ensure the U.K.'s approach is aligned with other nations, Sunak said he has spent "a lot of time talking to the [U.S.] president about their approach in the U.S. but also to the Australians, the Japanese."
BUT BUT BUT: However, Sunak stressed that it was also important to "engage" with China.
"Whether you like it or not, China is an indisputable fact of global economic life. There's no solution to the world's biggest problems whether that's climate change, regulating AI appropriately and safely, tackling global public health, macroeconomic stability without engaging with China,” Sunak said. "And if you've taken the steps you need to protect yourselves then you should be able to engage with confidence to the benefits of our country and those global norms." Sophie Inge has the full story.
FOR CAMERON, CHINA’S SIZE MATTERS: Defending his political record on China engagement, Cameron told the BBC that engaging China “is one part of the approach we need to take, not least because China is a fifth of humanity. We’re not going to solve challenges like climate change, unless we engage.”
“When I became prime minister [in 2010] the greatest need was for Britain to grow again, trade again, with exports to help our businesses around the world,” he said. “I loaded up planes, I took them to India, I took them to China, I took them to Africa to get the economy moving again.”
But he sees a need to adapt now: “China has become much more aggressive, much more assertive, over the Uyghurs, over Hong Kong, the wolf warrior’ diplomacy,” he said. “And so that’s why security and protection is such an important part of our policy.
CHINA’S ECONOMY CZAR WOOS BRITISH TAI-PANS: Xi’s trusted aide He Lifeng, the vice-premier and CCP’s point man on economic matters, met a delegation led by China-Britain Business Council chair Sherard Cowper-Coles. Cowper-Coles, a former British ambassador, is reportedly stepping down as HSBC’s head of public affairs after criticizing the British government’s policy on China, according to Bloomberg. Joining Cowper-Coles in the Beijing meeting were representatives from HSBC, Standard Chartered and AstraZeneca.
   |
BEIJING’S CLUMSY MEN IN TAIWAN
NO DEAL: It’s been a rough week in Taiwanese politics. Three Beijing-friendly politicians failed to join a coalition ticket and two of them ended up running for the January presidential election together, against the ticket led by William Lai, whom Beijing derides as a representative of Taiwanese independence.
The drama unfolded late last week, when Foxconn boss Terry Gou called for a meeting with Kuomintang candidate Hou Yu-ih and Ko Wen-je, who represents the self-declared centrist Taiwan People’s Party, But instead of a moment of solidarity, the press conference, which took place at a five-star hotel in Taipei, descended into disarray, with Hou and Ko both refusing to back down and become the other’s vice-presidential candidate.
At the end: Gou, whose lucrative iPhone-building business was briefly threatened with investigations by Beijing after he declared his candidacy, dropped out of the race. Hou and Ko are now both formal candidates but it remains to be seen whether either one of them will informally withdraw before the January 13 election, encouraging his supporters to vote for the other candidate.
Despite the fiasco: Ko, a former Taipei mayor, remains very popular among the young voters, many of whom prefer neither the Kuomintang nor Lai’s Democratic Progressive Party, which they complained was unable to improve Taiwan economically.
According to the latest poll: Ko secured 31.9 percent of support, surpassing Lai (29.2 percent), who’s been Taiwan’s vice-president for the last four years. Hou came last at 23.6 percent, though a decisive 15.3 percent say they’re undecided or unsure, according to the Taiwanese Public Opinion Foundation.
And that’s against initial expectations: Diplomats told China Watcher that they were initially expecting Ko’s popularity to drop following the press conference, as he aligned himself as a member of the pro-China camp, instead of the middle-of-the-road image he previously focused on. This is particularly a challenge for Lai and his newly-declared vice-president pick, Bi-khim Hsiao, who until a week ago was Taiwan’s ambassador to Washington.
FOR NOW, BEIJING TAKES AIM AT THE BIGGEST ENERMY. “Taiwan independence means war,” said Chen Binhua, the spokesman of Beijing’s Taiwan Affairs Office. “Lai and Hsiao formed a combination of independentists … The general Taiwanese people should be clearly aware of the fact that those who work for Taiwanese independence are trouble-makers and war-makers.”
Hsiao, on the other hand, talks peace: “In terms of Taiwan-U.S. relations, in terms of security issues, all efforts go into preventing [war] from happening,” Hsiao, the DPP vice-presidential candidate and a protégé of President Tsai Ing-wen, told Taiwanese media over the weekend. She added: “We must empower ourselves, make more friends internationally to maintain the peaceful world order.”
TRANSLATING WASHINGTON
CHINA TO LEAD UN GAZA PUSH: China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi will chair a United Nations Security Council meeting "on the Palestinian-Israeli issue"on Wednesday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said on Monday. The event will occur at the end of China's one-month in the role of the council's rotating presidency.
But don't expect more than Beijing's standard rhetoric on the need for a two-state solution to resolve tensions pushed to an all-time high by the ongoing Israel-Hamas war. China has failed to be "a material diplomatic contributor" to efforts end that conflict, President Joe Biden's special envoy for Middle East humanitarian issues, David Satterfield, said during a recent virtual briefing hosted by Al-Monitor.
Instead, China's diplomatic outreach in the Middle East aims to "portray the United States in a negative light and advance their own interests. Nothing new here. The Chinese do this everywhere, but in terms of substance as opposed to theater, nothing," Satterfield said.
MORE HEADLINES
FINANCIAL TIMES: Friendly foreign influencers win growing following in China
FRANCE 24: Myanmar rebels claim new ground in north as Chinese troops hold border exercises
NIKKEI ASIA: TikTok parent ByteDance to cut 1,000 gaming jobs in strategic shift
SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST: China's aircraft carrier a step closer to sea trial
WALL STREET JOURNAL: The era of total U.S. submarine dominance over China is ending
MANY THANKS: To editor Christian Oliver and producer Seb Starcevic.
SUBSCRIBE to the POLITICO newsletter family: Brussels Playbook | London Playbook | London Playbook PM | Playbook Paris | POLITICO Confidential | Sunday Crunch | EU Influence | London Influence | Digital Bridge | China Watcher | Berlin Bulletin | D.C. Playbook | D.C. Influence | All our POLITICO Pro policy morning newsletters
This email was sent to rouf@idiot.cloudns.cc
Unsubscribe from this newsletter, or
unsubscribe from all POLITICO SRL emails
POLITICO SRL · Rue de la Loi 62 · Brussels 1040 · Belgium
|
Comments
Post a Comment