EU Ambassador to China Nicolas Chapuis called on China to bridge the “trust deficit” to revive the Comprehensive Agreement on Investment (CAI). The signing and ratification of the CAI was suspended by the EU after China imposed sanctions on Members of the EU Parliament following the EU imposing sanctions on Chinese leaders involved in so-called violations of human rights in Xinjiang. At a forum in Beijing on July 4, European diplomats expressed their unease with China’s wolf warrior diplomacy and what they allege are human rights violations in Xinjiang. Chinese academics also criticized Europe for blindly following the U.S. lead in containing China.
Ambassador Nicolas Chapuis said Beijing’s defensive attitude towards outside criticism and its claims that the Chinese system was “superior” to that of the West prompted Europeans to ask whether China was challenging the political foundation of its relationship with liberal democracies, the South China Morning Post reports. “Over the last 18 months, it is true the political space for mutual understanding and mutual trust has been negatively impacted,” Chapuis said during a panel session at the World Peace Forum at Tsinghua University in Beijing. “It brings to us concerns that these attitudes are not only assertive but it’s turning too aggressive, much to our dislike,” he added.
Also on the panel, Luca Ferrari, Italy’s Ambassador to China, said that “the growing distrust towards China has little to do with ideology and race. It has more to do with the economy, the epidemic and wolf warrior diplomacy.” Beijing has insisted that it has the right to hit back against Western sanctions, and has repeatedly warned that it will not tolerate interference in its internal affairs. Zhou Hong, a specialist on China-EU relations with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), said the EU had focused so much on its differences with China that it had resulted in the suspension of an agreement that took seven years to negotiate. “As a Chinese I have difficulty understanding the definition of ‘systemic rivalry’,” Zhou said at the session. “We know we are from different systems. We managed to learn from each other to coexist peacefully and help each other. But I don’t understand why all of a sudden the difference of our social systems has become a big problem.” Jiang Shixue, former Deputy Director of the Institute of European Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, went so far as to suggest that Europe was being ungrateful towards Chinese investment, and simply followed the U.S. “When will the EU have its own independent foreign policy not like the copy cat of the U.S.?” Jiang asked.
Ambassador Chapuis said both sides needed to keep the channels of communication open and called on Beijing to review its sanctions on European lawmakers. “Political differences are obvious. But for the last 40 years we have managed to overcome, so why not now? Can’t we overcome the trust deficit?” Chapuis added that even though European negotiators considered the CAI to be a “good deal”, Brussels was “squeezed” by the Chinese countermeasures and it was up to China to create “political space” for reviving the deal, the South China Morning Post reports.
In a video conference with Chinese President Xi Jinping and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Emmanuel Macron said that France supports the signing of the EU-China investment deal and welcomes more Chinese companies to invest in the country.
