Both China and the EU hailed the recent investment agreement as a breakthrough, but the future of the bilateral relationship remains unclear. In addition to raising concerns about rebuilding the transatlantic alliance, the agreement has also faced criticism for condoning human rights abuses by China.
China and Europe agreed in principle last December after years of negotiations. But doubts about the agreement have since intensified in light of China’s continuing human rights abuses. Some European observers have criticized the EU for rushing into an agreement with China before Biden‘s inauguration.
“If agreement is reached ‘in principle,’ the real discussion begins, and different voices will be heard within the EU.” Sophie Boisseau Du Rocher, a senior researcher at the French Institute of International Relations, a think tank, told Voice of America. “And now there is a similar Perception of the risks to China in terms of democracy, values and principles.”
The views of MEPs are important because the agreement, led by German and French leaders, needs to be approved by the European Parliament before it can take effect, and a growing number of MEPs have expressed concern about human rights abuses in China.
In a resolution last week, the European Parliament condemned China’s crackdown on Hong Kong activists, called for sanctions against relevant Chinese and Hong Kong officials and said it would take China’s human rights situation into account when voting on the investment deal.
The resolution reads, “The EU’s rush to reach this agreement without taking concrete action on the serious human rights violations that are taking place in Hong Kong, Xinjiang and Tibet risks undermining its credibility as a global defender of human rights.”
Exporting values?
The terms of this investment agreement between Europe and China are subject to further negotiation, but according to the EU, it fosters a “values-based investment relationship,” specifically requiring Beijing to raise standards of labor and environmental protection to help China take root in a rules-based global order.
For those who support the agreement, it is Europe fulfilling its role as a major global power, exporting and defending its values through economic scale.
Yet that is not how Washington sees the agreement. Despite repeated statements from the Biden Administration before taking office suggesting that Europe was staying put, Brussels moved forward with the agreement. The Trump administration’s bashing of Europe over the past four years and its intense confrontation with China seem to have made Europe decide to deal with the China conundrum in its own way.
Richard Turcsanyi, director of the Central European Institute for Asian Studies at the Czech Republic’s Palasky University, argued that the EU still believes confrontation is not the most effective way to induce change compared to the United States.
Europe is very concerned about the human rights situation in China, especially in Xinjiang, but the EU may be more cautious in its actions,” he said. This does not mean that the EU treats China as a ‘friend,’ it just means that the EU’s approach is more complex – as the official line goes, it calls China a ‘partner, competitor and adversary’ at the same Time.”
Opponents argue that the agreement undermines the EU’s credibility on human rights and brings into the open the differences between Europe and the U.S. on how to deal with China. The U.S. State Department issued a statement the day before the end of the Trump Administration‘s term calling China guilty of genocide and Crimes Against Humanity in Xinjiang, but the EU did not immediately follow suit.
The criticism also echoes the view held within the Biden administration that German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s efforts to secure a deal with China and preserve European autonomy on China were a geopolitical blunder.
The analysis by the Institut Montaigne, a French think tank, found that the investment agreement provides minimal additional market access and that there are currently “almost no means” to monitor China’s compliance with its pledge to eliminate forced labor.
Given China’s past performance, it is unlikely to rely on goodwill to meet its commitments, and it would be unwise to assume that a top-down political process between the parties could substitute for legal arbitration on key issues,” said Francois Godement, author of the report.
The EU’s choice to go it alone overestimates its potential for strategic autonomy and risks undermining its own interests and values, Fogordon noted.
The Opposition Front Grows
Given that the political significance of the China-EU investment deal may even outweigh the economic significance, the outside world then watched China’s every move on human rights more closely.
But the early rewards of this agreement were not great. A few days after the agreement was announced, China launched a new crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong, which sparked even stronger doubts about the deal in Europe.
Anna Fotyga, a member of the European Parliament and former Polish foreign minister, wrote in an op-ed last week, “The message to the world from this decision is clear – there will be no consequences for action on human rights, and violations will be ignored and rewarded for the sake of investment and trade.”
According to German weekly Der Spiegel on Monday, a broad front against the agreement has formed over the past few days. More than 100 China experts, researchers and human rights activists around the world have publicly called for the EU to suspend its investment agreement with China.
In an open letter to the EU, they wrote; “Despite evidence of ethnic cleansing, forced labor and other serious human rights violations, the leaders of European institutions have chosen to sign the agreement.
The agreement does not require any meaningful commitment from the Chinese government to ensure an end to crimes against humanity or slavery.”
Turciani said strong public opposition is likely to sway the diplomatic decisions of European member states.
“Negative perceptions of China, both on human rights issues and on some of China’s foreign policy actions, make it more likely that the European Parliament or some member states will decide to veto the agreement,” he said.
Analysis suggests that the time for European countries to review the agreement also gives the Biden administration the opportunity to rework the transatlantic alliance.
In his first weekend in office, Biden spoke with European alliance leaders to express the desire for the United States to work closely with those allies on a range of foreign policy priorities of common concern, with how to deal with China at the top of the list.
Carlo Altomonte, a professor of economics at Italy’s Bocconi University and a researcher at the Brussels-based think tank Bruegel Institute, said the future of the CEI depends in large part on how the Biden administration handles relations with China in the coming months.
“Is the new U.S. administration willing to work with the European Union on its relationship with China so that China is willing to hold talks on issues such as labor standards, transfer of property rights and state-owned enterprises that they have been avoiding?” Tomondi said. “If they [the U.S.] continue to take a ‘confrontational’ approach, then I don’t think that’s going to accomplish much.”
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