'Warm up' for Xi Jinping

Last week, the Chinese ambassador to France blurted out some serious nonsense about the sovereignty of the former Soviet republics being in question. I immediately realized that he had screwed up, but I wondered what the EU's reaction would be.

And so Josep Borrell expressed 'concern' over these statements. But more importantly, there is something else. This is the first time the EU has talked about changing its strategy towards China. This is a very serious story. In a draft internal memorandum, European officials are considering a strategy to develop close relations with Brazil, Chile, Nigeria, and Kazakhstan to replace Chinese influence and dependence. For the latter, this is bad news because the Chinese were just planning to build closer relations with the EU as opposed to the United States. This was the subject of a conversation with Macron, who returned and began to say something about the EU's strategic independence from the United States. In general, the Chinese ambassador to France severely backstabbed Macron.

“China's ambassador to France has severely set Macron up. The EU takes a long time to get going, but when it does, it goes.”

The EU takes a long time to get going, but when it does, it gets going. I wrote a year ago that if the West does not start putting pressure on China and India, the sanctions will work against it. The reason is that the Chinese and Indians, receiving cheap Russian energy resources, reduce the cost of their goods and increase their competitiveness in Western markets. Talks about new partners to replace China may become a new geopolitical trend for many years.

This whole situation seriously tests Xi Jinping's stretch. On the one hand, he can increase the level of confrontation and isolation, but this will undermine China's main goal of becoming the world's number 1 economy, overtaking the United States. On the other hand, it is possible to back down and start playing along with the West on the war in Ukraine, but this undermines the second important goal, the return of Taiwan. So let's see how the Chinese will react to these new talks in the EU. I am betting on the second option.

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About the author. Victor Andrusiv, political and public figure, analyst and publicist.

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