China’s support for Russia the greatest barrier to better relations with the EU

The sun was shining and the wine and beer was abundant in the garden at the European Union delegation in Beijing on Thursday for the ambassador’s annual Europe Day reception. Each member state had a little stall decked with flags and offering national delicacies and the mood was upbeat.

The reception coincided with the last day of Xi Jinping’s first visit to Europe in five years, which took him to France, Serbia and Hungary. In his speech, ambassador Jorge Toledo welcomed the intensified dialogue between China and the EU while running through some of the areas of disagreement, including European fears about the impact of too many Chinese exports of goods such as electric vehicles.

But with the blue and yellow colours of Ukraine behind him alongside the EU flag, the ambassador’s strongest words to his Chinese guests were about Russia’s invasion and the two years of war that have followed it.

“I do not think the Chinese government has yet grasped the damage its position on this aggression has done to its image and reputation in Europe and with our allies. Neither do I think it has grasped how existential this is for us Europeans,” he said.

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Xi heard the same message in Paris from Emmanuel Macron and Ursula von der Leyen and China’s diplomatic and economic support for Russia has become the greatest barrier to better relations with the EU. Manufacturing overcapacity and trade imbalances are big problems that can be resolved through negotiation but the breakdown in trust will not be repaired as long as Ukraine overshadows the relationship.

Xi backed Macron’s call for a truce in all global conflicts to coincide with the Olympic Games which Paris hosts for two weeks from the end of July. Calls for an Olympic truce are traditional but seldom upheld and during the Beijing Olympics in August 2008, Russia invaded Georgia.

[ EU ready to use all trade tools to defend against China, says Ursula von der Leyen ]

China is officially neutral between Ukraine and Russia and it enjoyed good relations with both countries before the war. But while Xi’s “no limits” friendship with Vladimir Putin has not seen Beijing providing arms to Moscow, China’s diplomatic and economic support has been consistent, emphatic and essential for Russia.

China’s relationship with Russia has become more crucial in recent years as both countries have found themselves subject to sanctions from the United States and its allies. And Russia is an important part of the informal, non-western groups such as the expanded Brics which have become more important to Beijing.

China has benefited from cheap energy imports from Russia, which has replaced many western imports with Chinese products while US and Nato weapons stockpiles are depleted in Ukraine. But the diplomatic price of the conflict for Beijing is becoming ever more evident and Europe’s military build-up carries strategic risks for China as well as for Russia.

Switzerland has invited more than 160 delegations to a peace conference in Burgenstock in mid-June, immediately after a G7 summit in Italy. Russia has not been invited and China has not yet confirmed that it will send a delegation.

The conference will be based on the so-called Copenhagen format which had at its centre Ukraine’s own peace plan which calls for the withdrawal of all Russian forces from the entire territory including Crimea. But the Swiss government has made clear that the aim of next month’s meeting is to find a path towards peace talks that will include Russia.

This means that, contrary to much of the rhetoric from western capitals, Kyiv will have to move from its current negotiating position towards something like what it offered in Istanbul in April 2022. The two sides came close to a deal that envisaged a neutral Ukraine with limited armed forces and special status for the eastern parts of the country.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said last month that the Istanbul deal could be the basis of a new peace agreement but Putin says that Russia’s recent battlefield gains would have to be taken into account in any negotiation. One reason the Istanbul deal faltered was because the western powers felt insufficiently involved in shaping it and any successful negotiation would have to address the broader question of Europe’s security architecture.

China surprised the world last year by brokering a deal that restored diplomatic relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia. And when Xi hosts Putin in Beijing later this month, he will have an opportunity to follow through on his promise of support for an Olympic truce in Ukraine.

Xi will not abandon Putin but ending the war before Europe moves irrevocably into a war economy is in Russia’s interest as well as China’s. And a constructive Chinese role in bringing peace to Ukraine could have a transformative effect on Beijing’s relationship with the EU.