Debate: EU-China relations
Date: TUESDAY, 22 NOVEMBER 2022
Speaker: Josep Borrell Fontelles
Language: EN

The growing ideological nature of the Chinese political system, with the development of both a Marxist-Chinese style or Chinese way, and heightened nationalist rhetoric. In the speech of Xi Jinping the word security was used 29 times. In the report of Xi, again, 18 times during the previous Congress.  So the last time we discussed EU-China relation here was on 5 April, right after the EU—China summit and addressing and changing China’s ambiguous position on Russia’s war in Ukraine was the main European Union objective. China was not too eager to listen, but talking through differences is what major partners must do.  Many months later the Russian aggression against Ukraine is still ongoing. And while we keep our focus on the war at our eastern borders, our attention to China has not decreased. China has not condemned yet the war of Russia against Ukraine and the atrocities that are happening there. But it has set out clear red lines and is increasingly concerned about the global consequences.  Red lines about the use of nuclear weapons. And in Bali, also sending a clear message about the global consequences and the concern they have about it. At the same time, it’s not a secret that we and China, we have different political systems, that we view democracy and human rights differently, that we push different models of governance, that we have a different vision of multilateralism. But these differences should not and are not stopping us from engaging with each other.  China is becoming increasingly assertive and developing an increasingly vigorous competition. This is another reality, and I am afraid to announce you that it will remain the way it is in the coming years. And that’s why we must have a clear, steady and sustained strategy towards China. And in our last paper, in our last position paper, we realised that the realistic approach that we adopted in 2019 has to be reaffirmed because it’s neither naive, nor alarmist. Neither naive nor alarmist. It is rooted in the need to engage, to compete, and to stand up for our values, and I think it still remains valid. If we are to defend our interests and to address global challenges – climate change, but also environment, health – we need to speak, we need to work, we need to trade and negotiate with China. And European Union leaders reconfirmed this at the European Council.  They also agreed on the fundamental importance of our unity across all aspects of the EU-China relationship. Without unity we will lose both credibility and leverage. Both vis-à-vis of China and also globally. That’s why it’s so important that in our approach to China, we try to get a synthesis of different points of view and to keep a strong unity.  I can tell you that European Union leaders also agreed that the EU needs to step up its work on reducing dependencies and strategic vulnerabilities, diversifying sources of supply and improving internal resilience. This applies to raw materials and semiconductors, both being critical for the green transition.  To counter cyber and hybrid threats is something that has to be also high in our agenda, and to step-up our engagement with both the like-minded and the non like-minded partners to better address them. In a nutshell, to be concrete and short, we need to extend the economic and political dimension of our partnership, proposing sustainable solutions to key challenges and proving that our cooperation, our offer of cooperation, is as valuable as our political partnership.  Political partnership is needed. Concrete offers – I said that before in questions I answered – are as important. And our Indo-Pacific strategy and our global gateway initiative are central to that offer coming from Central Asia. And I can tell you that the countries of Central Asia are looking at us, awaiting our partnership, awaiting our support, because they don’t want to be squeezed between China and Russia. They want to have a more balanced foreign policy and this part of the world that some years ago that could be considered to be in the middle of nowhere, now it is in the middle of everything. And this is a good example of how we can increase our partnership with people who are not necessarily exactly our like-minded countries, but with whom we share a geostrategic interest.  And that’s important. And that’s why I count on this Parliament to support the work that we have been developing. And I hope this discussion today will bring some light to our work, insisting on the fact that we need at the same time to be part of a fierce competition, that we need cooperation in certain fields and we need to understand that in many others we will be engaged in a systemic rivalry.  That doesn’t mean to be in a permanent rivalry in anything, in any field for everything, everywhere. Communication channels have to be open with Beijing. Not even the Americans are asking for decoupling of their economies, neither are we. But certainly the human rights issue will be very high in agenda.  We need to update our policy toward China in the light of the most recent developments, and in particular the very important American declaration of 7 October concerning the drastic reduction of China’s access to American technology in the field of semiconductors. This is some decision that has to be very much taken into account because the technological battle will be absolutely fundamental for our immediate future.  Semiconductors are truly the most fundamental technological issue of the economic competition in the 21st century, and we have to develop also a dialogue with other countries that are in a similar situation to us – I’m thinking in particular of Japan – to keep a dialogue with the United States. This dialogue is going to take place next week. The Secretary-General of External Action Service and my team will travel to Washington to have this political high-level dialogue about China.  Certainly the US are our most important ally, but in some cases we will not be in the same position or in the same approach to China. But certainly we have to work together because what is going to happen in our relations with China will mark this century.