After the European Union sanctioned Chinese officials and entities over the Xinjiang issue, the Communist Party of China (CPC) imposed counter-sanctions on members of the European Parliament, which apparently had the opposite effect. Several members of the European Parliament who have been sanctioned by the Chinese Communist Party pointed out on April 8 that the Chinese Communist Party is “lifting a stone to smash its own feet,” and that they will not accept this and will continue to pay attention to Xinjiang and Hong Kong.
Reinhard Butikofer, chairman of the European Parliament delegation on China relations, is German; Miriam Lexmann, who was elected to the European Parliament for the first time, is from Slovakia; and Dovilė Šakalienė, a Lithuanian MP, are three European political figures from different countries who recently have something in common. These three European political figures from different countries have recently had something in common, as they have all been targeted by the Chinese Communist Party for their concerns about Xinjiang or Hong Kong. But at a seminar at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank, the three spoke in unison to let the Chinese Communist Party know that they don’t eat sanctions.
Kalienė: “We are a small country in Lithuania, and the CCP still says we are ‘Washington’s little brother,’ but Lithuania has deep historical experience and knows the tricks of Lenin’s dictatorship, they want to ‘force politics with business,’ which is like setting a mousetrap, and if we see only economic bait in our eyes, it’s over.”
European lawmakers sanctioned by the Chinese Communist Party spoke in one voice at an April 8 seminar at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank, to let the Chinese Communist Party know that they don’t eat sanctions.
Lexman noted, “The Chinese Communist Party misjudged the shift in the World Council’s attitude toward the Chinese Communist Party, especially when Australia was bullied by the Chinese Communist Party for merely calling for an investigation into the origins of the Communist virus outbreak, and they want to try the same old trick to influence the functioning of the European Union and democratic institutions.”
The Chinese Communist Party misjudged the situation and this is ‘lifting a stone to smash its own feet’, which is instead a sign of political defeat rather than a demonstration of the strength of the Chinese Communist Party,” said Boreham. In my opinion, the China-Europe Investment Agreement (CAI) is a lost cause in the European Parliament.”
For the three men, being on the CCP’s sanctions blacklist turned out to be a badge of honor, and the substantive impact of the sanctions, the details of which were not released by the CCP, on them personally was vaguely limited.
Boreham said he would try to avoid calling his Chinese friends in Hong Kong in the short term for fear they would be implicated; Lexman, who has worked on human rights in the past, noted that she would not stop focusing on human rights issues in China; and Kaliyane said her diplomat husband would not be stationed in Hong Kong or China. They all said that what is right is right if it has to pay this little price.
U.S.-European Hatred of China Alliance? White House Official: Defending Values and Principles
Secretary of State John Blinken recently left for a visit to the European Union and NATO before the United States, the European Union, Canada and the United Kingdom in late March on the same day, a rare sanction on the issue of human rights in Xinjiang Chinese officials, especially the EU sanctions on four Chinese officials and a construction company, is the year after the 1989 “Tiananmen Square massacre”, the EU again The EU sanctioned four officials and a construction company.
The Chinese Communist Party then announced a counter-attack and expanded its counter-sanctions to ten EU officials and four European entities.
Laura Rosenberger, senior director for China at the White House National Security Council, said at a Brookings Institution seminar that the U.S. is “deeply concerned” about Chinese retaliation against European political figures and entities, but that the U.S.-European alliance will only deepen and there is plenty of room for cooperation.
“The Biden administration has made it very clear that working closely with allies and partners is a central part of foreign policy in dealing with the Chinese Communist Party, as in the case of human rights in Xinjiang. I want to emphasize that the U.S.-European trans-Pacific alliance is often portrayed as an amalgam of antagonists, but we are showing that collective action and unity is strong when it comes to defending the universal values of international principles and human rights.” Rosenberg said.
Xi Jinping Self-Destructs Report Card on China-Europe Investment Agreement
After the international community has criticized and sanctioned human rights in Xinjiang, the Chinese Communist Party’s retaliation and counter-sanctions have rang hollow, especially as China’s practices against European countries have accelerated the mending of relations between the transatlantic alliance countries of Europe and the United States.
Chinese American scholar Minxin Pei, writing in The Strategist, a publication of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), pointed out that the Chinese Communist Party’s blacklisting of European parliamentarians and members of academic and research institutions is undermining the hard-earned deepening of the China-Europe trade partnership and misjudging the importance of its own market.
Pei Minxin pointed out that in the process of U.S.-China competition, it is in the CCP’s interest for Canada, Europe and the United Kingdom to remain relatively neutral; although it is costly, the CCP can afford to decouple from the U.S. economy, but decoupling from other major Western economies at the same time would be tantamount to making enemies with the whole world, and “the CCP cannot afford it.
The first thing it jeopardizes, he said, is the China-EU Comprehensive Investment Agreement that Xi has managed to conclude with the EU. This agreement needs to be approved by the European Parliament. However, the European Parliament has recently canceled a discussion on the CEIBS. Other parliamentarians have argued that the Chinese Communist Party should be required to ratify the ILO Convention on forced labor first.
Chinese market can be cut or abandoned Beijing is wrong twice in a row?
Pei Minxin points out that, especially in its response to the Xinjiang cotton strategy, the Chinese Communist Party misjudged the importance of its own market, mistakenly believing that multinational companies need China unilaterally.
He pointed out in the article to H & M as an example, H & M’s top two markets are the United States and Germany, although China is the third largest market, but last year’s revenue accounted for only 5% of H & M, H & M can afford to lose the Chinese market, but China’s 621 H & M suppliers can not afford to lose H & M this big buyer’s losses.
The Australian also reported recently that although Australia’s exports to China fell by A$20 billion a year, Australian barley, coal, copper, cotton, sugar and timber producers have diversified their markets or found new buyers to offset some of their export losses after the Chinese Communist Party imposed tariff sanctions, and only Australian wine was affected by the sanctions, with exports to the Chinese market falling by less than A$1 billion last year.
Roland Rajah, chief economist at the Lowy Institute in Australia, said the impact of the Communist Party’s sanctions on exports of Australian products had been “quite limited”.
Pei concludes that there is still time for China to turn the situation around, for example by allowing independent experts to visit cotton farms in Xinjiang to conduct field investigations. If the CCP does not have forced labor, this is the best way to prove its claim and improve relations with the Western world.
But he is also pessimistic that such a sensible move is unlikely to be adopted, as the CCP leaders are convinced of their misjudgment that the Chinese market is so large that the West will not give up, but have previously misjudged that the US will not decouple from the CCP, and this time with Europe, the CCP may be wrong again.
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