Chinese President Xi Jinping and French President Emmanuel Macron will meet this week.
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European officials are traveling to China in hopes of persuading Beijing to denounce Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and funky its recent kinship with the Kremlin.
The 27-member bloc is walking a tightrope, in search of to develop economic ties with China, but in addition reaffirming close political and cultural ties with america. This became especially difficult because the US administration intensified anti-Beijing rhetoric, and much more so within the aftermath of Russia’s invasion of its neighbor.
“It is evident that our relationship has turn into more distant and tougher over the past few years,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in a speech on Thursday ahead of her trip to Beijing this week.
“For a while, we’ve seen a very deliberate strengthening of China’s overall strategic posture. That is now accompanied by an intensification of increasingly assertive actions,” she added.
Von der Leyen is heading to Beijing this week with French President Emmanuel Macron. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez met Chinese President Xi Jinping last week. Europe’s top foreign diplomat, Josep Borrell, is heading to China next week.
“Many Europeans [are] they’ll China,” Borrell said on Tuesday, adding that that they had a clear message.
“His position on Russian atrocities and war crimes will determine the standard of our relationship with Beijing. Meanwhile, the European Union stays united and our transatlantic community also stays united,” he said.
China has not condemned the Russian attack on Ukraine. During a visit to Moscow in March, Chinese leader Xi Jinping called his Russian counterpart a dear friend.
US-EU relations have never been stronger.
Antoni Blinken
US Secretary of State
Beijing in February proposed a 12-point peace plan for a war with Ukraine. The plan doesn’t specify whether Russia needs to go away Ukraine for the deal to be finalized. Ukraine has made it clear that it would not comply with any peace deal that doesn’t involve regaining full control over its territory, including Crimea, which was annexed by the Kremlin in 2014.
“Europe has come very near the US position,” Niclas Poitiers, a researcher at Bruegel, told CNBC’s Squawk Box Europe, adding that Brussels wants to scale back dependence on China. The EU was heavily depending on Russia for energy and now desires to avoid similar mistakes elsewhere on the earth.
“Broadly speaking, the consensus is that we’d like to do something about our over-reliance on China and be sure that they do not blackmail small member states,” Poitiers said.
A recent example of increased convergence between the US and the EU is the choice of the Netherlands to impose export restrictions to China, following a move by the state authorities to limit Beijing’s access to state-of-the-art microchip production.
![Analysts say Europe has moved closer to the US position on China](https://image.cnbcfm.com/api/v1/image/107219281-16805263371680526334-28858479294-1080pnbcnews.jpg?v=1680527424&w=750&h=422&vtcrop=y)
As well as, the US became Europe’s top liquefied natural gas (LNG) supplier last yr because the bloc sought to phase out Russian hydrocarbons.
There may be also increased, albeit natural, cooperation between EU and US nations on security issues, given that the majority of them are also members of NATO.
“US-EU relations have never been stronger or more essential to our common interests,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in Brussels on Tuesday.
Blinken is meeting with his NATO counterparts this week, where they’ll discuss further support for Ukraine in addition to increasing financial contributions to the military alliance.
Nonetheless, getting closer to the US is just not a straightforward decision for European leaders. In 2022, China was the EU’s largest source of imports and the third largest buyer of EU goods, underlining Beijing’s economic importance to Europe. This is particularly essential when economic growth within the EU is vulnerable to the continuing war in Ukraine.
![French President Emmanuel Macron arrives on an official visit to China](https://image.cnbcfm.com/api/v1/image/107221521-16807714511680771447-28899080120-1080pnbcnews.jpg?v=1680777480&w=750&h=422&vtcrop=y)