A succession of EU leaders have delivered the same message to China: that future ties will be determined by the war in Ukraine and China’s relationship with Russia
US secretary of state Antony Blinken at a press conference at the National Museum in Oslo, Norway, on Thursday after an informal Nato meeting of foreign ministers. Photograph: EPAAfter a meeting with senior EU officials in Sweden this week, US secretary of state Antony Blinken said there was “convergence” between Washington and Brussels over China.
The joint statement that followed the meeting of the EU-US trade and technology council on Wednesday included only two explicit references to China. One expressed concern about China’s restriction of access to its medical devices market and the other condemned Beijing’s “amplification” of Russian narratives about the war in Ukraine.
The statement’s warning about economic coercion – the economic targeting of countries, firms and individuals for political reasons – was undoubtedly directed at China. But its reluctance to name China reflects the EU’s determination to resist Washington’s efforts to use the trade and technology council as a joint platform to target Beijing.
After last month’s G7 summit in Hiroshima, Joe Biden predicted that US-China relations were about to thaw and US officials have been seeking a dialogue between the two countries’ militaries. But Beijing has ruled out a meeting between its new defence minister Li Shangfu and his US counterpart Lloyd Austin at the Shangri-La Dialogue, a security conference in Singapore that starts on Friday.
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