Decoding transatlantic relations with Beijing.

By STUART LAU

with PHELIM KINE

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WELCOME TO CHINA WATCHER. This is Stuart Lau covering all the Europe-China news for you this Tuesday. Trust me it’s (even) more dramatic than usual this week. Phelim Kine will be watching Washington on Thursday.

HIS EXCELLENCY IN EPIC ERRANCY

DIPLOMATIC CRISIS: Spare a thought for Beijing this week. Imagine when one of your highest-ranking ambassadors makes a big blunder on air, not only sounding like an idiot with little knowledge of international law but also triggering alarm bells across ex-Soviet capitals, many of whom China regards as key allies.

The Chinese Ambassador to France Lu Shaye didn’t need to wait until the end of his interview with French TV channel LCI to realize he was in deep, deep trouble. In the interview he began by saying that Crimea’s sovereignty “depends how you perceive the problem” and that “ex-Soviet states do not have the effective status in international law,” and then he asked the presenter to stop “quibbling” over Crimea. The journalist challenged him by saying “if we amputated part of China, and we said we quibble…” Lu looked frozen for a second, gulped down the water from a cup and hesitated for a few moments.

After all, Lu, whose ambassadorship carries vice-ministerial rank, wasn’t given the order to infuriate ex-Soviet countries, spanning from the Baltics to the Caucasus and Central Asia.

Protestations flooded in before long. All three Baltic countries — Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia — announced over the weekend that they would be summoning their top Chinese envoys to demand explanations, followed by a tweet of disapproval by the EU’s Foreign policy chief Josep Borrell. France, where the whole saga started, responded too, with the foreign ministry also challenging Lu’s remarks.

Things escalated further on Monday. French President Emmanuel Macron spoke out, too. “There’s no place for a diplomat to use this kind of language,” he told POLITICO’s Hans von der Burchard. Macron also vowed “full solidarity” with these states: “The borders are untouchable.”

In Beijing, Wang Lutong, the Foreign Ministry’s Europe director, called an urgent meeting with EU and French ambassadors, reassuring them that Lu’s remarks didn’t amount to a change in China’s official policy.

Later in Monday, Lu had to walk into the French foreign ministry, where he explained China’s proper position with Luis Vassy, chief of staff to French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna. (The meeting was pre-planned.) Addressing what he called “a media storm,” Lu was forced to clarify that “China’s position on the relevant issues has not changed.” The French government said he was reminded to make sure his “public speech [would be] consistent with the official positions of his country”.

So what does Beijing actually think? The Chinese ministry’s spokeswoman Mao Ning sought to distance Beijing from Lu. “China respects the sovereign state status of the participating republics after the dissolution of the Soviet Union,” she said. China’s embassy in Paris also issued a note, saying that the ambassador’s remarks “were not a statement of politics, but an expression of personal views during a televised debate.”

Really? Western diplomats with knowledge of China’s diplomatic behavior cast doubt on such a claim. “There’s no such thing as a personal view for diplomats,” one of them said. The other noted that China’s diplomats “almost never say anything without approval from above.” According to François Godement, senior advisor for Asia at Institut Montaigne, Lu might well have been repeating the Party line. “A Freudian slip is about your subconscious, not that of your boss,” he said. “Lu is among those who think they interpret their boss more correctly than mealy mouthed [diplomats], and that they will be rewarded.”

— On the other hand, Slovak Foreign Minister Rastislav Káčer said he was OK with Beijing’s explanation. “I think that is a stupid argument that I would doubt [the] official policy of China would be, in this case … because this would go against their own interest” he told POLITICO’s Jacopo Barigazzi. “So I don’t want to believe that this is [the] official policy of China. And for a while I’m satisfied with the response from Beijing that this doesn’t reflect [the] official line of thinking in China. So I wouldn’t go any further. I’m not that paranoid.”

Please don’t watch it again: The Chinese Embassy in France removed the transcript of Lu’s controversial interview on LCI, as Bloomberg spotted. (Don’t worry if you still wanna watch it: LCI uploaded the whole playback on YouTube.)

NO STRANGER TO CONTROVERSY: Long before his latest saga, Lu was already notorious among the diplomatic corps, having made his name as one of the toughest wolf warrior diplomats.

— Spreading lies: During the coronavirus pandemic, the embassy under his watch started publishing disinformation about how France was handling the virus, saying at one point that nursing home staff were abandoning those in their care to die. The French foreign ministry summoned him to protest.

— Quashing academic: In 2021, the embassy launched an online attack against Antoine Bondaz, a China scholar at Foundation for Strategic Research, calling him “petite frappe,” (delinquent nobody), “hyène folle” (mad hyena) and “troll idéologique” (ideological troll) over his comments about Taiwan. Lu was, again, summoned.

— Reeducating Taiwan: “After the reunification [with Taiwan], we’ll do re-education,” he told French media after then-U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited the island last year. “I am sure that at that time, the people of Taiwan will be in favor of reunification again. They will become patriotic again.”

And he loves it: He once told the French media that he found the title “wolf warrior” to be a source of pride, saying: “Don’t we have the right to fight back and defend ourselves? This is not fair.”

EU-CHINA

EU LEADERS TO TALK CHINA IN JUNE: EU leaders will discuss China relations over the European Council summit in June, Council president Charles Michel announced Monday. Even among the doves in the club, such as Michel, Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, there is support for the hawkish Commission President Ursula von der Leyen‘s call for de-risking and an elevated sense of economic security against China.

UPDATING: Before that June pow-wow, the EU’s 27 foreign ministers will first discuss China to lay the groundwork in an informal meeting (a.k.a. “Gymnich”) in May in Sweden, which currently holds the rotating presidency of the Council of the EU. Prior to that, the EU’s diplomatic arm would be preparing for an “update” of the 2019 EU strategic paper on China, according to top EU diplomat Josep Borrell.

“On China, we will have to continue discussing [at] the next Gymnich meeting. We are preparing a position paper, updating and recalibrating our strategy towards China, as it was defined in 2019, which is a long time ago,” Borrell told reporters after the Foreign Affairs Council meeting on Monday. “We will work in order to present it with an analysis… that will be discussed by the leaders.” Camille Gijs writes in to report.

The three elements still stand, though in different weights: “Rivalry can be seen to have stepped up, [though] it doesn’t mean partnership has been stepped down … Competition has gone up as well,” Borrell said.

HE ALSO WANTS WARSHIPS: In an article published over the weekend, Borrell called on EU countries to send warships to patrol the Taiwan Strait. Here’s my write-up.

NOW READ THIS: Our editor-in-chief Jamil Anderlini explains why Europe’s disunity over China is widening further still. Here‘s Jamil’s take.

CAUTION FROM PRAGUE: In an interview with POLITICO’s Lili Bayer, Czech President Petr Pavel explains why it’s futile to count on China to make peace in Ukraine. Here’s Lili’s story.

TRADE AND TECH

TRADE CHIEFS MEET: On Monday night, Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao had dinner with Valdis Dombrovskis, the EU’s trade commissioner, in Brussels. That followed a bilateral meeting featuring the first ministerial visit to the EU headquarters since China lifted the pandemic measures. Wang’s visit also came as U.S. officials, such as Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and her Commerce counterpart Gina Raimondo, are still awaiting further confirmations about their visit to China to meet trade officials.

Don’t circumvent sanctions: According to the EU statement, the EU commissioner “raised Russia’s war in Ukraine, and that the sanctions cannot be circumvented.” Dombrovskis, a former Latvian prime minister, also pointed to the “unacceptable remarks” of Lu, the ambassador, while Wang reassured him that Beijing’s position had not changed.

Back to bilateral trade: The EU trade chief used the meeting with Wang to plan “concrete outcomes” in the upcoming high-level economic and trade dialogue with He Lifeng, a long-time acquaintance of President Xi’s and newly appointed vice-premier in charge of the economy. Dombrovskis “emphasized the need to recalibrate bilateral trade relations,” citing China’s “market-distortive policies and the growing politicization of the business environment” as grounds for “doubts and disincentives for European investors.”

Earlier in his Europe tour, Wang also visited Paris where he met Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire and Olivier Becht, the foreign trade secretary; as well as business executives from companies including LVMH, Hermès, BNP Paribas.

DE-RISKING? HARD TO TELL: It remains to be seen how far the EU’s de-risking strategy will go, since “the German government is on the fence and member states are wary of ceding too much foreign policy influence to Brussels,” according to a report by Albright Stonebridge Group, a strategic advisory firm.

NEXT, CHIPS: Taiwan microchip giant TSMC’s representatives will meet EU Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton today, amid reports that the company is looking into setting up a new plant in Germany.

UK BIG SPEECH

SECURITY, ALLIES, ENGAGEMENT: Those are expected to be the top three key themes in James Cleverly‘s speech on China which the U.K. Foreign Secretary is scheduled to deliver this evening.

It’ll be a step more skeptical than Brussels’ approach, in that Cleverly will set out security as the most important element in the multifaceted approach (as opposed to the EU’s partnership focus.)

According to the U.K. Foreign Office, Cleverly will first call for strengthening “national security protections whenever Beijing poses a threat” to British people or prosperity; he will also highlight the need to deepen cooperation with friends and allies in the Indo-Pacific. Engagement with Beijing comes last as the third element.

Confronting his own party: Ia message to the increasingly outspoken China hawks within his Conservative party, Cleverly will warn against entering an era of open confrontation with Beijing.

“To give up on China would be to give up on addressing humanity’s biggest problems,” Cleverly is expected to say, according to words shared by his department ahead of the speech.

“It would be clear and easy — perhaps even satisfying — for me to declare a new Cold War and say that our goal is to isolate China. Clear, easy, satisfying — and wrong. Because it would be a betrayal of your national interest and a wilful misunderstanding of the modern world.”

Hope, hope, hope… Cleverly is also expected to express his hope on Beijing to behave. “When Britain condemns the mass incarceration of the Uyghur people in Xinjiang, I hope our Chinese counterparts do not believe their own rhetoric that we are merely seeking to interfere in their domestic affairs,” he’s expected to say. Similarly he will “urge China to be equally open about the doctrine and intent behind its military expansion, because transparency is surely in everyone’s interests.”

TRANSLATING WASHINGTON

HOMELAND SECURITY TARGETS ‘PRC THREATS’: The Homeland Security Department will undertake an intensive 90-day evaluation of Chinese security risks to the U.S. and strategies to counter them. “I have directed a 90-day Department-wide sprint to assess how the threats posed by the PRC in six critical areas will evolve and how we can be best positioned to guard against future manifestations of this threat,” Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in a speech on Friday. Those areas include protection of critical infrastructure, disruption of China-based supply chains that fuel the U.S. opioid overdose epidemic and mitigating China’s “malign economic influence,” Mayorkas said.

KERRY: U.S.-CHINA CLIMATE COOPERATION FROZEN: Wider tensions in the U.S.-China relationship are continuing to suspend bilateral cooperation in tackling the climate crisis.  U.S. Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry’s plan to meet with his Chinese counterpart, Xie Zhenhua, is in limbo due to Chinese anger over Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen’s U.S. transit visits earlier this month, Kerry told CNBC on Friday.   Xie “extended to me an invitation from the Chinese leadership to visit China to come and sit down, pick up our conversation from where we were a few months ago, but that was interrupted by the events over Taiwan, and so sometimes things have just crept in and gotten in the way,” Kerry said.

NEW CHINA-FOCUSSED DRAFT LEGISLATION: The stream of  China-challenging draft legislation emerging on Capitol Hill continues. Reps. Young Kim (R-Calif), the chair of the House Indo-Pacific subcommittee, and the body’s ranking member, Ami Bera (D-Calif.),  re-introduced their Uyghur Policy Act on Thursday. The bill will require the U.S. government to develop a “multilateral strategy to raise international awareness of the persecution of Uyghurs,” Kim said in a statement. That same day Reps. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.), chair of the House Select Committee on China and Chrissy Houlahan (D-Penn.) rolled out their Taiwan Cybersecurity Resiliency Act which aims to “arm Taiwan to the teeth in the cyber domain,” Gallagher said in a statement. 

YELLEN WARNS ON CHINA’S ‘CONFRONTATIONAL POSTURE’: Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen expressed concern about the malign impacts of China’s economic and diplomatic settings. China’s “state-driven” economic strategy “has undercut its neighbors and countries across the world [and] this has come as China is striking a more confrontational posture toward the United States and our allies and partners,” Yellen said in a speech on Thursday. Yellen also expressed her intention to “ to travel to China at the appropriate time,” without elaborating.

CHINA COMMITTEE WARGAME REAPS DETERRENCE TAKEAWAY:  The House Select Committee on China Committee held its tabletop wargame exercise last week and we’ve gotten a readout about how it all went down.

— Remind me: In the scenario, set in 2027, a political crisis moved Taiwan’s leadership to more seriously consider itself an independent country. In response, Chinese paramount leader Xi Jinping launched an invasion to force unification of the self-governing democracy with the Communist mainland.

— So what did the lawmakers learn? Per a Republican staffer on the committee, members were convinced of the need for deterring China from even considering an invasion of Taiwan. The basing of U.S. troops in the region will help minimize losses and having long-range missiles will make America more effective in case of a fight — requiring a significant uptick in production of those weapons. It’d also be prudent to clear the $19 billion backlog in weapons for Taiwan so it can be armed ahead of a potential war.

Meanwhile, the U.S. needs to prepare for a collapse of the global economy during such a war. In the exercise, China was cut off from SWIFT and supply chains were in tatters, roiling and collapsing world markets. The wargame results “stressed the need to take action to deter CCP aggression and arm Taiwan to the teeth before any crisis begins,” committee chair Gallagher told POLITICO’S NatSec Daily team. “Deterring war is the only path to peace and stability.”

OTHER HEADLINES THIS WEEK

NEW YORK TIMES: Chinese Censorship Is Quietly Rewriting the Covid-19 Story.

THE GUARDIAN: Fears grow for Taiwan book publisher believed held in China.

AP: Australia plans major overhaul of defenses as China rises.

Financial Times: U.S. urges South Korea not to fill China shortfalls if Beijing bans Micron chips.

Nikkei Asia: China’s planned changes to espionage law alarm foreign business.

MANY THANKS TO: Editor Christian Oliver, Jamil Anderlini, reporters Jacopo Barigazzi, Lili Bayer, Camille Gijs and producer Fiona Lally.

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