It is not just relations between China and the United States that are strained, the situation is also deteriorating between Europe and China. It’s an ongoing process really. The latest case is the one concerning Peng Shuai, which has moved the whole world. The tenniswoman had disappeared after accusing a senior politician of rape.
On RTL, Jean-Yves Le Drian had also asked for news of the sportswoman causing the fury of Beijing. Beyond this case, there is this reciprocal investment trade agreement that is negotiated for a long time between Europe and China and which is still pushed back.
At last, the situation of the Uyghurs, this severely repressed Muslim minority living in the Chinese province of Xinjiang, is also causing strong tensions between Europe and China.
Europe in a complicated position
Europe will have to take sides in thea new “cold war” between China and the United States. One certainty: the Old Continent will seek to avoid any conflict. From this point of view, Donald Trump has done harm by attacking Europe and Germany, suggesting that America was not looking for an ally, but simply “junior partners” who would obey him.
Angela Merkel was very struck by this. Raffarin’s thesis then took off. The hopes put in Joe Biden were quickly showered. Identical rhetoric on China. Discourse on the international community, not to mention the AUKUS affair in the fall, which showed that Americans first thought of their own interests.
The Australia-UK-US coalition torpedoed the sale of French submarines in Canberra for the benefit of US nuclear-powered ships. A shock for France.
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>> Lenglet-Co special issue: coronavirus crisis, a weekly podcast presented by François Lenglet, which gives you the keys to understand everything about economic developments and changes, in Europe and around the world. The journalist also took the opportunity to wring his neck out of many received ideas about the economy.
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