Chinese leader Xi Jinping and German Chancellor Angela Merkel spoke by phone on Wednesday (April 7) at a time when relations between China and the European Union are at a low ebb. Xi said he hoped the EU would make the right judgment “independently” at a time when China-EU relations are facing “various challenges.
In the middle of last month, the EU joined the United States, Britain and Canada in announcing sanctions against key Chinese officials involved in the persecution of the Uighur Muslim minority in Xinjiang. This was the first time since the 1989 Tiananmen Square incident that the EU and the UK had imposed sanctions on China on human rights grounds.
Beijing immediately hit back, announcing sanctions against 10 individuals and four entities in Europe, including several members of the European Parliament and a number of leading European think tanks and academics. This round of exchanges destroyed the friendly atmosphere created by the bilateral investment agreement reached late last year and caused a major setback for the Chinese Communist Party, which is in the midst of a confrontation with the United States.
Analysts say Xi’s phone call with Merkel is an apparent hope that Sino-European relations will not continue to deteriorate and that some more efforts will be made to salvage bilateral cooperation.
Merkel, who has been the German chancellor since 2005, is a well-known pro-Chinese figure in the EU. Germany is the largest economy among the 27 EU member states.
In the call, Xi said the EU and China should “respect each other” and “eliminate interference. However, Xinhua’s report did not specify the source of the “interference.
Xi urged Germany and the EU to work together with China to maintain the healthy and stable development of bilateral cooperation. He also said China is willing to work with the international community to promote the “fair and reasonable distribution” of coronavirus vaccines and opposes the “politicization” of vaccines or “vaccine nationalism.
The dispute between the EU and China could undermine the EU-China investment agreement, which was reached at the end of 2020 after years of negotiations. EU Trade Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis later said that the fate of the “EU-China comprehensive investment agreement” is closely linked to the latest diplomatic dispute. He said, “China’s retaliatory sanctions are regrettable and unacceptable.” He said that the “prospect of ratification” of the agreement would depend on how the situation develops.
The large number of center-left socialist and democratic groups in the European Parliament made it clear that ending sanctions against the European Parliament is a “prerequisite” for progress in ratifying the investment agreement.
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