The European Parliament voted 599 in favor, 30 against and 58 abstentions to freeze the “EU-China Investment Agreement” on the 20th, provided that China lifts its sanctions against European parliamentarians.
Instead of reflecting on why the agreement reached at the “Europe-China Summit” a few months ago ended so badly, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian accused the EU of violently interfering in China’s internal affairs based on lies and false advisories, and of taking the wrong decision to impose unilateral sanctions.
China and Europe have been negotiating for the adoption of this investment agreement for seven full years, and Xi Jinping wants to complete this agreement with the EU ahead of schedule before Biden officially takes office, knowing full well that the U.S. opposes this agreement between the EU and China unilaterally; and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who holds the presidency of the EU, also strongly wants to complete the investment negotiations with China before she leaves office in the fall, so to speak, this The reason why the agreement was hastily reached on December 30 last year, despite the general opposition of European public opinion, has a significant relationship with Merkel’s full promotion. Despite the fact that Merkel was criticized by European public opinion for this, she insisted on doing so.
Merkel’s will prevailed and a ‘Europe-China Investment Agreement’ was reached at the end of the year. The next step was the approval of the European Parliament to endorse the process. The EU had already foreseen difficulties in the Parliament, but it was Beijing itself that accelerated the “bankruptcy” of this agreement in principle. In other words, Beijing has lifted a stone and smashed its own feet. The mass repression of the Uighurs has been an issue of great concern to Western public opinion in recent years, and Beijing has been asked by the United Nations, Europe and the United States to allow an international independent investigation mission to visit Xinjiang, which Beijing has refused to do. The U.S. has announced sanctions against Chinese officials related to Uighur human rights in Xinjiang, and the European Union has done the same, the first time in three decades that the EU has imposed sanctions on China over human rights issues since the Tiananmen Square massacre of June 4, 1989.
When the EU sanctioned the CCP, it expected that the CCP would counter-sanction, but the EU did not expect that the EU would sanction four CCP officials and one institution, and that the CCP would retaliate by countering 10 European parliamentarians and academics and four institutions. What the EU did not expect was that the CCP would sanction EU parliamentarians and scholars, which is very different from the sanctions imposed by Europe and the US on the CCP officials involved. This makes the EU finally realize “how different” the CCP is. But observers point out that the Chinese side has done too stupidly, both to hope that the European Parliament passed the 0 European-China investment agreement, but also to sanction the members of this parliament, which is undoubtedly a self-inflicted mouth. It is easy to understand why the European Parliament has made the removal of sanctions against MEPs a prerequisite for re-discussing this agreement.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said on the 21st that the EU’s sanctions against China “violently interfere with China’s internal affairs”, saying that the European side’s unreasonable sanctions have led to the current difficulties in Sino-European relations, and that “the responsibility does not lie with the Chinese side, and I hope the European side will seriously reflect on it”. In the European view, Zhao Lijian’s set of words is undoubtedly the most appropriate for Beijing.
Another important reason for the EU’s growing resistance to the EU-China Investment Agreement is that the EU later found out that there were many unbelievable details hidden in the annexes of this principled EU-China investment agreement, which was hastily pushed by Merkel. The editorialist of French newspaper Le Monde, Sylvie Coffman, said in an article titled “The European Investment Agreement”. Ms. Coffman made this perfectly clear in an article entitled “The wind has changed, Europe’s illusions about China have been shattered”, writing that the most infuriating thing for Berlin is that they have fallen into Beijing’s trap. Germany, the largest exporter to China among EU countries, had been hoping to maintain the momentum, and with Xi’s encouragement, Merkel urged the EU countries to reach this agreement in principle with Beijing on December 30 last year, but since then, it has become clear little by little that “the devil is in the details.
For example, one such sentence was found in Article 9 of Annex II of the draft agreement, which reads, “The leaders of non-profit organizations authorized to operate in China shall be Chinese citizens.” Specifically, if Merkel’s CDU charity, the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, has an office in China, this office must be headed by a Chinese national. Obviously, this is no guarantee of independence.
Also, when the annexes to the EU-China investment agreement were released in March, a closer reading revealed that the concept of reciprocity, once touted by the parties involved, was strangely unbelievable, for example: the investment clause in the audiovisual sector stipulates that no European film or TV series may be shown on Chinese screens between 7 and 10 p.m. without the consent of the Chinese Communist authorities. Furthermore, only Chinese cartoons could be shown on Chinese animation channels between 5 pm and 10 pm.
At that time, after the agreement in principle between the two sides on European and Chinese investments, the Chinese side kept its mouth shut in its country about the details, and the European side emphasized the Chinese side’s commitment to pass laws related to the abolition of forced labor. But French public opinion was very skeptical of Beijing’s commitment at the time. They cited the necessary conditions for market countries that the Chinese Communist Party promised to achieve after fifteen years when it joined the WTO, only to find out fifteen years later that it was a scam. But the EU, which still felt at the time that China’s commitment to protecting labor rights was important and took it as a major achievement in convincing European public opinion, realized how naive it had been to cronyize Beijing a few weeks ago after the EU sanctioned Beijing over Uighur human rights and Beijing doubled down on its countermeasures.
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