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A comprehensive China-Europe agreement by the end of the year!
The honeymoon between Beijing and Brussels has been going on for years!
A remarkable allure:
The high hierarchy of the European Commission and a few other minor institutions have always been fascinated by the red dictatorship of Beijing.
Brussels continues to strongly criticize Vladimir Putin, but turns a blind eye to Chinese actions regarding sending millions of Uighurs to concentration camps ( for the so-called re-education), the occupation of Tibet, the trafficking of organs of those sentenced to death, the repression in Hong Kong, the threats against Taiwan, the fraudulent public procurement in Greece or Poland, the removal of rare earth supplies in Africa..
No sanctions, no shelved… only sweet words.
Not long ago, a report by the « East Stratcom Task Force » which pointed at the Chinese government about media misinformation on the origins of COVID19 was edited by the EU’s foreign service to please Beijing. On the other hand, the reports against Russia are systematically repeated and sometimes exaggerated!
My personal experience
I experienced it myself, as President of a European institution (as Pascal Dalando recounts in « The Twilight of the Bureaucrats ») because I had dared to meet the Tibetan Dalai Lama and participated in a demonstration in Brussels against the coming dictator Xi Jinping, I was the victim of a group within the administration I was leading! China is no longer the benevolent trading partner the West hoped for. “This is the rising power of our century and NATO must adapt, » stated a NATO diplomat after reading the report, pointing to China’s activity in the Arctic and Africa, and its heavy investments in European infrastructure.
NATO is concerned… a little bit:
Not until very recently NATO -traditionally also pro-Beijing- believed that China could pose a threat and encourage its members to maintain a technological advantage over China and to protect IT networks and infrastructure.
According to a recent report, the 30-member Alliance could also forge closer ties with non-NATO countries such as Australia and focus more on deterrence in space, where China is developing resources.
Before the report was released, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said China’s rise posed « significant challenges to our security. »
« China is investing heavily in new weapons. It is closer to us, from the Arctic to Africa. China does not share our values… and is trying to intimidate other countries, » he said at a press conference, urging allies to come together on the issue.
NATO should consider including China in its official strategic document, its « strategic concept, » diplomats acknowledged, but the report will not declare China an adversary. The word adversary is reserved for Russia…
But the European Commission persists and employs.
The European Commission does not bother with its « coy behavior« . It strengthens its ties with Communist China every day, without lifting a finger for Hong Kong, Tibet or the Uighurs.
Brussels finds only qualities in the Beijing regime. Lately, while China is by far the world’s largest polluter and has embarked on a vast programme of building coal-fired power plants, the European Commission is full of praise for environmentalist Xi Jinping!
But there is a much more serious issue: A comprehensive agreement by the end of the year!
While we are all confined, the EU is unable to pull out its recovery plan and the purchase of vaccines, Brussels bureaucrats are making progress in one area; More precisely, it is the prospect of a comprehensive agreement, a global, economic and trade partnership with China, which could be signed by the end of the year.
An agreement that aims to please a few large multinationals that invest in China and will permanently open all our doors to Chinese products, regardless of environmental, social or human conditions!
The Chinese and European negotiators announced five days ago that the agreement was almost finalized!
The European Commission is publicly pleased to have secured guarantees for European investment in China. On the other hand, China will be able to invest freely in our country (Where is the European economic sovereignty dear to Emmanuel Macron? ) , win all the major public markets (as recently in Sweden or Poland, usually with disastrous consequences for Europeans in terms of jobs and quality of work) and deluge us with their production!
The Commission has its hands free to sign!
« A good deal for Europe, » according to Sabine Weyand, the EU’s chief negotiating bureaucrat. She loudly welcomes Beijing’s goodwill, adding only cynically that there is just a lack of « a small commitment » on China’s part to respect the 7 major international conventions on labour law of the International Labour Office/Organization. Indeed, nonsense such as prisoner labour, children, gender equality or decent work. The chief bureaucrat hopes that this « small question » will not jeopardize an agreement « so beneficial to the European economy ».
The lady actually has the green light to negotiate freely, because that is the rule in the EU, when a negotiating mandate is given to the European Commission, she can go all the way without real control.
And so much for international standards at work!
Sabine Weyand is therefore close to concluding, considering that labour law issues could be the subject of provisions at a later date.
On labour law, Brussels is expected to accept, as it did recently with Vietnam, a vague statement assuring that « China will continue to make substantial efforts to ratify and implement the conventions of the International Labour Organization (ILO) »
The ratification process may therefore take at least « 50 years »!
But the question about “applying” the convention also exists. Many countries, like Pakistan, have ratified conventions, without ever applying them. Who will check in the labour camps where the Uighurs are placed if the ILO conventions are respected!
To silence the Grumpy!
Many MEPs are outraged by Brussels’ compassion towards China and by the fact that the EU is ready to grant everything to Beijing. However, the European Commission does not seem to care about it.
The agreement will be signed, and if difficulties are put in place for ratification by the European Parliament and by the national parliaments, the European Commission could use the votes and money of the powerful lobbies on the industry sector, and silence the « grumpy », a practice that has been used with many other international agreements.
Even the Member States are sometimes selective and timid, as we have seen with the EU/Canada NAFTA agreement, but they are also amazed by the discourse of Brussels and the great leaders of the stock market and the banking sector. This is of course the case for Germany, but also for Emmanuel Macron’s France, for whom the interest of the big CAC 40 obviously takes precedence over that of TPM / SMEs from all sectors which will be swallowed up by the dragon. Even small and medium-sized construction companies will face competition from Chinese state giants, and hence they will be forced to cut their prices. But the interests of Total, Free, Louis Vuitton, Rothschild and others are obviously much more important!
As for the defenders of the Uighurs, Kazakhs, Tibetans, Falun Gong and other Chinese democrats, they will become further isolated. Hong Kong’s move also appears to be part of the « gift package » with Beijing.
But why such an agreement between Brussels and Beijing?
I give three reasons:
- Beijing has always been able to flatter bureaucrats by offering them nice trips, beautiful gifts during their stays and the « famous red carpet »! I have known many colleagues, bosses or trade unionists, bureaucrats or former civil society activists, who have succumbed to it.
- Berlin is very keen on its privileged relations with Red China, because German industry has invested heavily in it! And Germany does not care about small producers of Italian shoes, Portuguese ceramics or French lingerie! And we know that: what Germany wants, the European Commission does! The gathering of Emmanuel Macron’s France, on behalf of his friends from the CAC 40 and the Bank, is impressive even if it is hard to see![1]
- Finally, there is a real fascination of European bureaucrats for the dictatorship of the Masters of Beijing. A form of admiration! This is a system that corresponds to what they could not imagine for Europe, even in their wildest dreams: uncontrolled and globalist capitalism under a regime governed by the Bureaucracy, not tolerating trade unions or any parliamentary control! As one would say vulgarly: « a great thing » for a Bureaucrat!
Henri Malosse
[1] I remember a colleague of the German employers who assaulted me in public following my meeting with the Dalai Lama for « losing contracts of thousands of cars to the German industry » (sic)
Le Crépuscule des Bureaucrates - Chronique d'une fin annoncée de l'Union Européenne 