Twenty-twenty was the year in which Xi Jinping’s geopolitical lawlessness and domestic abuse culminated. Yet the year ended with a free EU giveaway to Beijing in the form of a one-sided, opaque and fraudulent investment transaction. The Europeans betrayed their American ally, not to mention their own values.
Seven years in the job, but driven by the pandemic, the agreement was hastened by German Chancellor Angela Merkel and European Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen. They insist that the agreement at the same time upholds ‘our interests’, while ‘promoting our core values’, as Von de Leyen put it.
But the concept confirms what everyone familiar with China’s behavior over the past decade should now know: namely that Brussels has sacrificed European values to advance economic interests – marginally.
Yes, the agreement will open up new service industries for European investors, hinder technology transfers and provide a degree of transparency in state-owned companies and other forms of marketing. The EU hails these modest concessions from China’s state capitalist apparatus as major victories, but most of them were already in the pipeline – and could have been without betraying human rights if the Europeans included the United States as a third partner.
As it stands, the deal is likely to disappoint on its own terms, prompting European newcomers to the Chinese economy to complain about an unequal playing field in the industries this deal offers for investment, such as electric vehicles, consumer finance and private hospitals. While China’s giants are being allowed to raise capital and swim home, European companies will largely remain hostage in a tumultuous game in which the Chinese state’s thumbs are squarely laid on the scales.
And for what? The EU is essentially prepared to expose its routine sermon on human rights as cheap talk in exchange for fatter margins for carmakers, consumer goods manufacturers and other largely German multinational companies. Meanwhile, the agreement does little to counter the communist regime’s massive slavery of its Muslim minorities. It will, at best, kill the ongoing efforts of human rights advocates and China hawks at the European Parliament to free the continent’s supply chains of forced Uyghur labor. At worst, it will include new European businesses in the same blood-stained value chains.
The official text calls on China to comply with a number of provisions of the International Labor Organization that have already ratified it, while no enforcement mechanisms are available at all to monitor behavior on the ground. China is immediately a fundamental signatory of the ILO and the world capital of modern slavery. The Europeans to get Beijing to ratify additional ILO provisions may therefore just seem pointless.
The deal comes as the China-Hawk Trump administration is on its way out the door. Elected President Joe Biden and his foreign policy coterie, though historically soft on Beijing, have indicated they prefer a joint, trans-Atlantic approach to China. But the Europeans could not wait to see what the new regime would mean in Washington.
The highlights of the agreement claim that the EU should not be held accountable for the conspiracy with an ally whose own China policy was not stable in all governments. They also argue that it is not in Europe’s long – term interest to get caught up in the China – US rivalry. But the European ambiguity is, or should be, obvious to Team Biden, despite the typical temptation of the Democrats for European goodwill.
In the post-COVID world, China’s abuse of homes and households is unlikely to diminish and may even worsen. Against this backdrop, the EU’s race to reach an agreement says something – something ominous – about European “strategic autonomy” from America. The buzzword is first driven by French President Emmanuel Macron and now flies around Brussels.
Yes, the agreement has not yet come into effect one year, but it’s been two days since Biden had to figure out how to react – not an enviable position for the leader of the free world. Biden can take a page from his predecessor. President Trump’s China-skeptical instincts and his distrust of Europeans seem fair: Xi is as bad as he insisted, and Angela Merkel’s Eurocracy has been exposed as a bunch of salesmen.
The democratic West needs a single backbone. Let’s hope Biden has it.
Jorge González-Gallarza is an associate researcher at Fundación Civismo.
Twitter: @JorgeGGallarza