Xi due in Europe as continent split on political rivalry between Washington and Beijing

Semafor Signals

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Insights from L’Indépendant, VSquare, and Bloomberg

The News

Chinese leader Xi Jinping will visit France, Serbia, and Hungary starting May 5, the country’s foreign ministry announced Monday. The tour — Xi’s first to Europe since the COVID-19 pandemic — could deepen divisions between the continent’s leaders over China’s role in Europe’s clean energy transition and the Russia-Ukraine war.

Xi’s visit comes just weeks after German Chancellor Olaf Scholz visited China. While there, he warned Xi about Chinese overcapacity — or excessive trade — of green tech like solar panels and electric vehicles, which some EU leaders believe are undercutting rival European firms.

Xi’s visit also comes as Western leaders worry China could take a more active role in supporting Russia’s war in Ukraine. Observers are keen to see whether Xi will have influence over Europe’s security policy going forward.

SIGNALS

Macron pushes for ‘strategic autonomy’ from Washington

Sources:  L'Indépendant, TLDR News

French President Emmanuel Macron called for European “strategic autonomy” last week, in what many saw as a rebuff of Washington’s control over European security via NATO. Europe “must show that it is never a vassal of the United States,” Macron said. Europe could “die” if it loses influence amid the power struggle between Washington and Beijing, the French leader added, according to TLDR news. Instead, he proposed the bloc can stay geopolitically relevant if it balances power between the US and Asia. Macron’s words are a contrast to the shared belief of many EU officials that the US is vital to the bloc’s security. Some officials said Macron is promoting French industrial interests — specifically, military hardware manufacturing — according to L’Indépendant.

Cash-strapped Hungary uses China as bargaining chip with EU

Sources:  Semafor, BBC, VSquare

While most EU leaders decry China’s flooding of the green tech market, Hungary’s right-wing government has embraced Beijing and become a hub for Chinese investment in electric vehicle parts and batteries, as Semafor previously reported. But Budapest’s coziness with Beijing might be a strategic ploy to get more EU financial support, according to VSquare, a European investigative news site. China has promised to finance the modernization of Hungarian railways and a new oil pipeline to Serbia as part of its Belt and Road Initiative. Hungary is unable to pay its own way because the EU froze infrastructure funding, known as cohesion funds, to Hungary over the country’s backsliding of democracy. Hungary repeatedly “threatens the EU Commission with increasing reliance on Chinese financing if the cohesion funds are not released,” VSquare reported.

Belgrade visit signals China’s support of Russia

Source:  Bloomberg

Xi is expected to visit Serbia close to the 25th anniversary of the 1999 US bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade. The incident killed three Chinese journalists and fueled Beijing’s historic anti-NATO stance and alignment with Russia. Former US President Bill Clinton apologized for the bombing and said it was an error caused by outdated maps. But most Chinese still consider the bombing intentional, as one China scholar told Bloomberg; Chinese authorities have brought up the bombing in defending Russia’s position of NATO aggression along its borders. By visiting a European country that has so far refused to support Western sanctions on Russia, Beijing may be signaling to Washington that it is “going to stand by Russia and deepen their partnership,” one China watcher told Bloomberg.