The Chinese president is under scrutiny for his position on Russia’s war in Ukraine, even as he attempts to mend fences with a skeptical Western Europe. For the first time in five years, Chinese President Xi Jinping is traveling to Europe, where the focus will probably be on the economic rift between Beijing and Brussels as well as Russia’s conflict in Ukraine.
Prior to heading south to the Pyrenees, Xi will make her first stop in France, where she will meet with President Emmanuel Macron of France and President Ursula von der Leyen of the European Commission on May 6.
He will then proceed to Serbia and Hungary, two nations that have continued to have tight relations with Russia in spite of the latter’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
The three objectives of the Chinese president’s trip to Europe are to “repair relations in Europe damaged by China’s support for Russia’s war on Ukraine, blunt the EU’s economic security agenda vis-a-vis China, and showcasing Beijing’s strong ties with its stalwart partners Serbia and Hungary,” according to Matt Geracim, assistant director of the Atlantic Council’s Global China Hub.
This is everything you need to know about Xi’s tour of Europe, which runs through Friday.
The Overall Picture
On January 27, 2024, Beijing and Paris will commemorate 60 years of diplomatic ties. France was the first Western nation to publicly recognize the People’s Republic of China.
However, the tour coincides with a worsening state of international security, with Israel continuing to bombard Gaza, killing at least 34,683 Palestinians, and the war in Ukraine entering its third year.
According to France, those two wars will be heavily discussed during the negotiations, especially Ukraine, where Beijing has declared its neutrality but has not denounced Moscow for its full-scale invasion.
Prior to the visit last week, the Elysee Palace released a statement saying, “Exchanges will focus on international crises, first and foremost the war in Ukraine and the situation in the Middle East.”
Macron, who has lately shown himself to be among the most assertive of the EU’s leaders when it comes to the security of the continent, will be pressuring Xi to exert pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin on Ukraine. During a recent interview with the Economist, the French president stated that the war was crucial for Europe’s survival.
He declared, “There will be no security in Europe if Russia wins in Ukraine.” “Is it realistic to think that Russia will end there?” He questioned what protection would be provided to neighboring nations like Moldova, Romania, Poland, Lithuania, and others.
Von der Leyen will participate in the discussions on Monday as well, which are scheduled to begin shortly after 11:00 a.m. (09:00 GMT) in order to emphasize the cohesion of the European position.
Europe has opened a probe into China’s subsidies for electric vehicle makers because it is worried that these payments are hurting European companies and weakening competition, in addition to the conflict in Ukraine.
Macron assured the Economist that he would explain to Xi the reasons Europe needs to protect its own producers and sectors of the economy.
China was prepared to “work with France and the EU to take this meeting as an opportunity to make the China-EU relations more strategic, stable, constructive and mutually beneficial, promote steady and sustained progress in China-EU relations, and contribute to the prosperity of both China and Europe and a peaceful world,” according to Lin Jian, a spokesman for Beijing’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, prior to Xi’s departure last week.
Following the summit on Monday, Xi and his wife Peng Liyuan will be hosted to a state banquet by Marcon and his wife Brigitte.
Macron is scheduled to drive the Chinese leader to the Pyrenees mountains on Tuesday. As a child, he used to travel there frequently to visit his grandmother. Additionally, it is anticipated that the two couples would ride a cable car to the top of the 2,877-meter (9,439-foot) Pic du Midi, a dark sky reserve.
Following his tour of France, Xi will go to Serbia, where he will meet President Aleksandar Vucic in Belgrade on the 25th anniversary of the Chinese Embassy attack. When Washington claimed it had unintentionally hit the property during the NATO air war against Serb troops holding Kosovo, three civilians were killed. This incident sparked outrage and protests in China.
Since then, China has been Serbia’s largest single source of investment; before the trip, MOFA spokesperson Lin described the two nations’ relationship as “ironclad.” Serbia is not a member of the EU.
According to Stefan Vladisavljev, program director at Foundation BFPE for a Responsible Society, “the bombing remains a significant topic for Chinese officials, who use it to support narratives that question the values of liberal democracies,” in an online analysis. “The visit offers Serbia a chance to solidify its standing as China’s principal ally in the Western Balkans.”
After that, on May 8, Xi will depart for Budapest, the last destination on his European tour.
There he will see Viktor Orban, the president of Hungary and the most pro-Russian leader in the EU.
According to Zoltan Feher, a nonresident fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Global China Hub, Hungary, whose policies have alarmed other EU members, has gotten closer to Beijing and Moscow. Hungary recently signed a security cooperation agreement with China that permits Chinese police officers to work in areas where there are significant ethnic Chinese populations or which are well-liked by Chinese tourists.
In other regions of Europe, reports about these Chinese police posts have caused concern, especially among dissidents and exiles.
The two men will probably talk about Hungary’s participation in China’s Belt and Road Initiative, which it joined in 2015. The project involves building a high-speed train line between Budapest and Belgrade.
War in Ukraine
Macron has made a point of emphasizing the necessity for Europe to create its own security architecture as opposed to depending on the US and NATO.
He has also said that if Russia were to breach the front lines and Kyiv requested help, France would be prepared to provide troops to the country.
Although Beijing and Moscow have strengthened their ties since the full-scale assault started, China has long insisted that it is neutral in the conflict. Putin is scheduled to visit China this month.
Macron will be trying to convince Xi that China has to be more actively involved in peace efforts when Switzerland hosts a peace summit next month to go over a 10-point proposal proposed by Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the president of Ukraine, for peace at the end of 2022.
More than 160 delegations have reportedly already received invitations from the Swiss, but it is unclear if Beijing—which has also proposed holding peace negotiations and sent its own envoy to the area—will be there.
Russia has always rejected the process and maintained that negotiations must first result in Kyiv giving up the twenty percent of its land that it now occupies.
According to an anonymous diplomatic source cited by the French daily Le Monde, “We must continue to engage China, which is objectively the international player with the greatest leverage to change Moscow’s mind.”
Human Rights
Chinese official media has been covering Xi’s arrival in Paris with great excitement; the streets are festooned with Chinese and French flags, and Chinese citizens are gathering to welcome their president.
However, proponents of Tibet and Xinjiang, where the UN claims China may have held a million or more ethnic Uighurs in camps for reeducation, may have committed crimes against humanity, were also visible on the city’s streets.
In March 2021, the EU implemented targeted penalties on a number of Chinese officials and companies related to Xinjiang, which infuriated Beijing.
Human Rights Watch states that even though the French president did not bring up the subject in public during his visit to China last year, he ought to do so now that Xi is in Paris and demand the release of everyone who has been wrongfully detained or imprisoned, including Uighur economist Ilham Tohti, who was given the Sakharov Prize—Europe’s most prestigious human rights award of 2019—and other prisoners.
According to the human rights organization, Macron should also bring up the subjects of Hong Kong, which was formerly China’s most liberated territory but is now governed by two harsh security laws, and Tibet, where about a million Tibetan children are being sent to boarding schools and kept apart from their language and culture.
Human Rights Watch’s acting China director, Maya Wang, said in a statement that “President Macron should make it clear to Xi Jinping that Beijing’s crimes against humanity come with consequences for China’s relations with France.” “France’s inaction and silence on human rights issues would only give the Chinese government more confidence to carry out its atrocities, escalating repression both domestically and internationally.”
On April 30, during a ceremony honoring French Senator Andre Gattolin, a lifelong supporter of Tibet who was granted the Legion d’Honneur, Macron was pictured at the Elysee Palace with Penpa Tsering, the head of the Tibetan government-in-exile.
According to a report by the Central Tibetan Administration, Penpa Tsering “urged him not to forget Tibet” and gave the French president a signed photo of his 2016 meeting with the Dalai Lama.
According to a statement from Vincent Metten, EU policy director for the International Campaign for Tibet, “We understand that the agenda between the two presidents will be dense given the many international crises, such as in Ukraine and the Middle East, but this must not be done at the expense of exchanges on human rights, which are in a deplorable state throughout the country as well as in Hong Kong, Xinjiang, and Tibet, where a latent conflict has been going on for over 60 years and poses a threat to regional and international security.”
Tibet received an overall score of zero out of 100 in Freedom House’s 2024 report on Freedom in the World, the lowest in at least eight years.
The crisis in Ukraine underscores the threat that authoritarian governments like Russia and the People’s Republic of China pose to world order and security, according to Maryse Artiguelong, vice president of the world Federation for Human Rights (FIDH). Anyone who does not protest China’s breaches of human rights runs the risk of eventually having to deal with its assertive foreign policy. Their oppressive domestic policies and aggressive foreign policies are inexorably intertwined.
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