AP reports from Taipei, Taiwan China’s leader Xi Jinping is set to focus on trade and investment on his first visit to Europe in five years as the Asian giant reestablishes its foreign policy following a protracted hiatus during the Covid-19 outbreak.
Xi will begin the journey in Paris on Monday, meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron, who has been emphasizing the need of strategic independence of Europe from the United States. In an apparent reference to American backing for the self-governing republic of Taiwan, which China claims as its own territory to be seized by force if necessary, Macron sparked controversy during a visit to Beijing last year by stating that France would not always align with the United States in foreign policy.
Following his departure from France, Xi will travel to Hungary and Serbia, two countries viewed as sympathetic to China and near to Russian President Vladimir Putin, in an attempt to counter Western condemnation of his massive invasion of Ukraine.
Washington will be watching Xi’s travels to Europe attentively for indications of waning support for its main foreign policy objectives.
China spends a great deal of national prestige in the Summer Olympics, and the Chinese leader will come in France precisely as Paris is closing up its preparations for hosting the tournament.
As Xi’s visit officially commemorates 60 years of diplomatic ties between France and China, France wants to concentrate on China’s wider ties with the EU. President Ursula von der Leyen of the European Commission was invited by Macron to the Monday talks.
It happens one month before Biden is invited for a comparable state visit by Macron, who bills himself as Europe’s diplomatic leader.
Professor of Chinese Studies and director of King’s College London’s Lau China Institute Kerry Brown remarked that it is also evidence of “the good vibes from Macron’s visit to China in April last year”.
Xi is on a very calculated trip to Europe. And you can read the runes of Chinese policy on Europe right now in his schedule, which supports both new and old connections as much as possible.
Xi is also in Budapest, where the opposition is posing political threats to 14-year incumbent Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán because of his authoritarian approach.
Hungary has tread carefully between being a member of the EU and NATO and being unusually receptive to diplomatic and commercial contacts with autocracies in the east like China and Russia.
Sweden’s NATO admission was months delayed by right-wing populist Orbán, who has developed strong links with Russia. China has said that Russia was provoked to invade Ukraine by NATO expansion.
Joining Xi’s flagship Belt and Road Initiative, which aims to construct billion-dollar highways, ports, power plants, and other infrastructure throughout Asia, Africa, and beyond, Hungary is the first EU member.
Orbán attended the BRI summit in Beijing alone among EU leaders. The initiative has under criticism for burying participant nations in debt and not delivering on promised investments, which led Italy to withdraw last year.
Nonetheless, the government of Hungary has strengthened its commercial relations with China, with the most focus being paid to the spread of Chinese electric vehicle (EV) battery facilities throughout the nation. Near Debrecen, the second-largest city in Hungary, work is under progress on a nearly 550-acre, 7.3 billion euro ($7.9 billion) EV battery factory, the biggest foreign direct investment in Hungary’s history.
On his European journey, Xi will next visit Serbia, a southern neighbor of Hungary, where China has made significant infrastructure investments.
Part of a Belt and Road plan to connect up with the Chinese-controlled port of Piraeus in Greece, to the south, an entry point for Chinese goods to Central and Eastern Europe, Hungary and Serbia signed an agreement with Beijing in 2014 to modernize the railway between their capitals of Budapest and Belgrade.
After many delays, the almost $2 billion project is predicted to be finished in 2026.
Xi will meet with President Aleksandar Vucic of Serbia, whose administration China has developed close ties.
Friendship between the two nations dates back a long way, especially until 1999 when NATO struck the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, killing three Chinese nationals, as part of the air campaign to put a stop to Serbia’s bloody campaign against ethnic Albanian separatists in Kosovo.
Although the United States apologized, claiming that poor target selection was to blame, the episode resulted in violent attacks on American diplomatic facilities in China and stoked anti-American feeling in both nations that still exists today.
Serbia received a highly advanced Chinese anti-aircraft system transported in aboard six Chinese Air Force Y-20 cargo aircraft in 2022, not long after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Experts saw the weapons delivery over the territory of at least two NATO members, Bulgaria and Turkey, as evidence of China’s expanding global influence.
China says it is impartial in the Ukraine crisis, yet prior to Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, Xi and Putin said their governments enjoyed a “no limits friendship.” China has been charged of strengthening Russia’s weaponry production and its military edge over Ukraine, which is awaiting tens of billions in Western military aid, and of refusing to label the Russian attack an invasion.
Passed last week, a U.S. military aid bill includes $61 billion for Ukraine and $8 billion to fight Chinese threats in Taiwan and the Indo-Pacific, which China has denounced as a risky provocative act.
The Chinese foreign ministry claimed that given the level of military support Washington is giving Kiev, the US stance on Chinese defense trade with Russia was disingenuous.
China disputes supplying armaments to Russia, and the United States claims to have not discovered any concrete proof of this. A U.S. assessment does, however, note that China does export machine tools, microelectronics, and other technologies that Moscow uses to manufacture missiles, tanks, aircraft, and other weapons for its conflict with Ukraine.