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By Matthew Tostevin
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British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s mission to China this week earned a five percent reduction in tariffs on scotch whisky exports and a stiff warning from U.S. President Donald Trump.
"Very dangerous," was the way Trump put it.
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But Starmer was only the latest NATO ally leader to pay a visit to Chinese President Xi Jinping. Many pillars of the West are seeking to balance their global relationships because of the unpredictability of a U.S. president who has challenged longstanding norms, started tariff wars with both friends and adversaries, and threatened to take over Greenland and maybe Canada.
Starmer’s pilgrimage to Beijing followed visits by France’s president and Canada’s prime minister. Germany’s chancellor is due there next month. Trump himself is also visiting in April.
But as the Europeans and Canada tilt toward China, which they have previously described as a security threat and criticized for rights abuses, they may end up getting not only less business than they hoped for, but also an even worse relationship with a United States that remains their main trading partner, and is still the world’s most powerful country.
"China thinks it doesn't have to offer anything because everybody's desperate, so they all flock to China," Alicia Garcia-Herrero, a senior fellow at the Brussels-based Bruegel think tank, told Newsweek.
"It's a bit demeaning. It's like you go there. Yes, China is God. You come and flock and pray there, but nothing happens. No matter the fuss, it is still not enough to tilt the balance. The balance won't be killed by China. The balance will be killed by the U.S, continuing to undermine it."
Starmer’s visit was a case in point. The cut in the scotch tariff was the only obvious immediate benefit for Britain, but the country only exported $320 million in whisky to China in 2023, a little over a fifth as much as it sold to the United States. Plus, China’s total exports to Britain that year were 300 times that amount of British whisky exports to China.
Starmer got a partnership on the services sector and a hint at a future trade deal, but nothing concrete. Then there was a visa-free deal to help British tourists to go to China—and spend money there—and the promise by Britain-based pharma giant AstraZeneca to invest $15 billion in China in research and manufacturing: another obvious benefit for China. Just as importantly, Britain recently gave China the go-ahead for a massive new embassy in London, raising U.S. concerns over its espionage potential.
"China is a vital player on the global stage, and it's vital that we build a more sophisticated relationship," Starmer told Xi in Beijing.
Xi in return mentioned how it was good that the UK had recognized a relationship with China was essential.
In an apparent swipe at Trump, Xi told Starmer "unilateralism, protectionism and power politics are running rampant," according to China’s Foreign Ministry.
He also alluded to Trump's aggression so far this year to wield the military might of the U.S. against even its allies in the cases of Greenland, and Ukraine.
"The international order is under great strain," Xi told Starmer. "International law can be truly effective only when all countries abide by it. Major countries in particular should set an example, otherwise the world will revert to the law of the jungle.
"As supporters of multilateralism and free trade, China and the U.K. should advocate and practice true multilateralism."
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Trump backlash
Trump was predictably unhappy over Britain’s increased trade ties, warning "it's very dangerous for them to do that, and it's even more dangerous I think for Canada to get into business with China." The U.S. president has already threatened 100 percent tariffs on Canada if it does a trade deal with China.
Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney went further than Starmer on his visit to Beijing on January 16, announcing a new "strategic partnership" with a reference to it taking place in "a more divided and uncertain world" that was clearly aimed at Trump.
Carney did a deal to improve access for China to Canada’s electric vehicle market, while the benefits for Canada would go to its farm products—perhaps unwittingly contrasting a high-tech China with an agrarian Canada.
"These moves are significant, as U.S. allies such as the U.K. and Canada seek to stabilize relations with China after years of strain," Eva Seiwert, Senior Analyst at the Berlin-based Mercator Institute for China Studies, told Newsweek.
"However, the emphasis is on pragmatic economic engagement rather than strategic realignment, with leaders repeatedly stressing that security and defense ties with the United States remain unchanged."
U.S. allies were clear-eyed about their cooperation with China, said Patricia M. Kim, fellow at the John L. Thornton China Center and the Center for Asia Policy Studies of the Washington, D.C.-based Brookings Institution.
"Many U.S. allies have direct experience with Chinese economic retaliation and longstanding concerns about Chinese overcapacity and its impact on their domestic industries and trade balances," she told Newsweek.
"They also continue to have deep-seated differences with China over values and governance. Even amid tensions with the United States, these realities set a hard limit on how far U.S. allies are prepared to move toward China."
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China deficit
While China might seem appealing for its dramatic economic rise and leading-edge technologies, the United States is the European Union’s main trade partner and it has a significant trade surplus. With China, it has a large and growing deficit.
European countries have often sought partners abroad to support their way of life: from outsourcing security to the United States to buying cheap energy from Russia to betting on immigrant labor in the face of aging populations. It has not always ended well.
There is some irony in the fact that while Trump’s approach to ending the Ukraine war has been a major cause for the souring of relations with European countries, those same countries are now strengthening their ties with China, whose trade and technology have helped enable Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Not all U.S. allies have been courting China. Japan has gone in the opposite direction under Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, who has taken the Sino-Japanese relationship to its lowest in years after comments on Taiwan that offended Beijing. She has also sought to establish a strong personal relationship with Trump.
South Korea's approach to Beijing has been more conciliatory, with President Lee Jae Myung making a four-day visit this month to reset ties that had been poor for years and especially under the previous strongly pro-U. S. administration.
While U.S. allies may feel that by building ties to China as a rising power, they might not only be hedging their economic bets, but also be jolting the United States into a less bullying approach toward its allies, it could turn out to be misplaced gamble when it comes to President Trump.
With China not willing to offer more to the Western leaders, the backlash from the Trump administration could end up being a harsher consequence of their diplomacy, said Garcia-Herrero.
"You leave China disenchanted and you still have a community in your country telling you ‘What are you doing? You are putting at risk the trans-Atlantic alliance?’ Then on top of that Trump comes and sets 100 percent tariffs on you. You’re like ‘why did I even go?’ she said. "You would have to receive a lot to take that risk and China is not offering it."
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