A look at the goals of the Chinese president’s trip to Europe

According to the international group Tasnim news agency, Zoddeutsche newspaper In an article, Saitong discussed the objectives of the planned visit of the Chinese president to Europe after about 5 years and wrote: The Chinese president is visiting Europe for the first time in the past five years – and despite this gesture, we can expect him to He made harsh comments against the European Union and NATO.

Chinese President Xi Jinping is going to France today (Sunday) on an unprecedented trip to discuss with Macron about reducing Trade imbalance and talk about Ukraine.

This is Xi’s first visit to Europe in the past five years. After France, the trip will follow to Serbia and then Hungary. With this six-day visit, the Chinese leadership has two goals, “to get Europe-China relations back on track” and to counter the European view that China’s growing support for Russia in the war, explains Abigail Vaslie of the China-focused think tank Merix. Ukraine must have consequences.

Xi will spend Monday in the French capital. With the celebration of the 60th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Paris and Beijing, he is looking for a “good moment” that can have an overall positive effect on bilateral relations with the European Union. But despite an excellent tour of the Pyrenees scheduled for Tuesday, the sides are likely to remain in contention. Vaslie expects: Paris will put China’s support for Russia at the center of the discussion. According to him, Macron had followed an unsuccessful attempt a year ago to force Xi Jinping to influence his friend Putin. Xi will use it to reaffirm European unity, as the Chinese are often accused of breaking up the EU. At a private dinner in Paris with the German chancellor on Thursday, Macron reportedly tried to convince him that when EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen meets Macron and Xi in Paris on Monday, he too come there Unlike Schultz last month, Macron took the head of the European Commission with him on his trip to Beijing last year. An EU investigation into unfair competition practices against many Chinese exports, from electric cars to airport scanners, could end in a trade war. Beijing has already launched an investigation into the French brand over France’s support for punitive tariffs on cars. In Germany, enthusiasm for von der Leyen’s anti-China stance is low due to concerns about Chinese retaliation against Volkswagen, BMW and Mercedes in their most important markets.

From France, Xi will travel to Serbia. The timing is also symbolic here, as Tuesday marks the 25th anniversary of the bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade by NATO planes. For Xi, the meeting is highly symbolic at this time, he says, with which he can point out the “double standards” of the US-led NATO alliance to domestic audiences as well as those in the Global South. According to him, the Chinese president wants to show that NATO does not create security, but acts against the interests of China and Russia. Beijing blames NATO’s eastward expansion for the war in Ukraine.

According to Bachulska, the fact that Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic sets the scene for Xi , matches the “opportunistic” style of this politician. He emphasized: While Serbia is trying to join the European Union on the one hand, it is trying to gather its bargaining tools with its “resolute friendship with the strategic rival of Brussels (China).

Chinese police officers have been patrolling Serbia’s capital Belgrade since 2019, and Chinese companies are operating in numerous economic sectors in Serbia, and are now creating strong competition for European companies They signed a free trade agreement last year.

Bachulska also sees a similar motivation to Vucic in Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who is expected from Wednesday to Friday. Hosted by Chinese President Xi Jinping. Hungary is China’s Trojan horse in the EU. Unlike other EU members, Orbán did not turn his back on Xi when he ordered the attack on Ukraine.

But even if Orban wants to use Beijing as a counterweight to pressure from Brussels, Bachulska believes that the EU is ultimately more important to Hungary than China. For example, Budapest did not veto sanctions against Chinese companies allegedly supporting Russia’s war in Ukraine, although it protested them. Isolated in the European Union, Orban also has limited influence over punitive tariffs against Chinese products because the decision is made by majority vote.

The Chinese president at 2 p.m. It arrives in Paris at GMT. His official visits include joint talks with French President Emmanuel Macron and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. It is one of Russia’s main partners, and our goal is to use Beijing’s pressure levers and its influence on Russia and help to participate in solving the crisis and conflict in Ukraine.”

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