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By John Feng
China Editor
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The European Union's top diplomat on Tuesday rebuked China for its tolerance of Russia's actions in Ukraine, a message that he said would be conveyed to Beijing by visiting European leaders this week.
"There is a clear expectation from a permanent member of the [U.N.] Security Council to stand up in defense of [the] international rules-based order, and China has a moral duty to contribute to a fair peace," said Josep Borrell.
China argues it remains neutral on Russia's invasion of Ukraine, but its leaders have offered the Kremlin much-needed economic and diplomatic cover in the past year.
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"They cannot be siding with the aggressor. They cannot be militarily supporting the aggression," Borrell said in Brussels next to the visiting U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
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President Emmanuel Macron of France and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen arrived separately in China on Wednesday and would carry the same message, said Borrell, who himself is due in Beijing next week.
"But we have been clear with China that its position on Russia's atrocities and war crimes will determine the quality of our relations with Beijing," he said.
During Macron and von der Leyen's three-day visit, Ukraine will be among the topics raised in talks with Xi. Von der Leyen, who spoke with President Volodymyr Zelensky on Tuesday, is likely to press the Chinese leader to finally call his Ukrainian counterpart.
Beneath the surface, the two European leaders bring very different agendas to the talks in China.
One week ago, at an event jointly hosted by the Berlin-based Mercator Institute for China Studies and the Brussels-based European Policy Center, von der Leyen delivered a strongly worded speech in which she underscored Europe's need to "de-risk" from China, politically and economically.
Xi "wants China to become the world's most powerful nation," she said.
China was among the EU's top trading partners last year, and the bloc remains highly reliant on Chinese imports for its strategic industries including computer chips and green technologies.
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Macron, meanwhile, who faces considerable headwinds at home, has brought with him dozens of French business leaders to discuss deepening trade and investment.
Thomas des Garets Geddes, who authors the Substack newsletter Sinification, wrote on Wednesday that France's pursuit of European "strategic autonomy" from the United States is welcome in Beijing.
"Put differently, France's main appeal to China's international relations experts is its potential role in helping prevent a further 'Americanization' of the EU's China policy and the consolidation of a U.S.-led bloc of countries aimed at stymying China's economic and geopolitical rise," he observed.
A day earlier, Noah Barkin, a senior visiting fellow with the German Marshall Fund's Indo-Pacific Program who writes its monthly newsletter Watching China in Europe, quoted a French official as saying: "We have no intention of joining a U.S. campaign to isolate China. We want to create a shared future with them."
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