Brussels wants to be relentless in the face of Beijing. Seven years after the start of the negotiations and as they finally come to an end, there is no question of signing an investment agreement without a commitment from China against forced labor. The outcry provoked by recent revelations of the exploitation in the cotton fields of hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs, a Muslim minority in Xinjiang persecuted by the central power, has cooled European enthusiasm.
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Until Monday, December 28. Several diplomatic sources hailed a “Progress” in negotiations. The European Commission would thus have “Obtained from China the language requested by Europeans on Beijing’s compliance with the two conventions of the ILO (International Labor Organization) on forced labor ”. Understand their upcoming ratification or at least the promises to achieve it. Has the EU triumphed over the Chinese dragon and saved millions of Uyghurs from slavery?
A trompe-l’œil concession
“Signing ILO conventions does not commit to anything. Who will check that they are in place? “, mocks the MEP and Uyghur defender Raphaël Glucksmann. Accused regularly of interning at least a million Uyghurs in concentration camps, China retorts that it is only about “Re-education camps”. However, it drastically limits access to Xinjiang for foreign observers.
According to diplomats, Beijing and Brussels could speak before January 3 on the issue. But for Rémi Castets, political scientist and Uyghur specialist at Bordeaux Montaigne University, it is all the less likely that China will agree to ratify the conventions on forced labor as “That would be aligning with Western standards” while “President Xi Jinping’s line is precisely to no longer give in to the injunctions of the West”.
Protection of European investments
France has nevertheless warned: it will not sign an agreement without this condition being met. The text should make it possible to protect Chinese and European investments between themselves. Despite years of negotiations and on the eve of his signature, the president of the Asia Center research institute, Jean-François Di Meglio, fears that he is a ” empty shell “.
Pressed by the end of the German EU presidency on December 31 and by the upcoming inauguration of Joe Biden as head of the United States, “They did not necessarily have the time or the means to make a real negotiation”, he breathes. “One can imagine that China and its European partner sign the principle of total freedom of cross-investments, the terms of these investments being reviewed on a case-by-case basis. In theory you have the right to invest, but in practice you don’t know if you have the right or not. “
However, for Brussels, the stakes are high. It is indeed a question of protecting the investments in progress and to come of its nationals in China vis-a-vis an authoritarian mode inclined to take again the hand on the private companies as public on its soil. As evidenced by the precipitous closure under Chinese pressure of the EDF branch in Taiwan, considered a Chinese province by Beijing, and revealed by Mediapart.
The European Parliament, the last safeguard
From this perspective, the fate reserved for the Uyghurs may seem of less importance compared to that of the financial center of Hong Kong severely taken over by the Chinese regime. But “It is not so much the signing of the agreement as its ratification that is important, raises Jean-François Di Meglio. The European Parliament, which must ratify the text, seems less interested in Hong Kong than in Uyghurs. “
→ READ. Uyghurs: China criticized by MEPs
On December 17, he voted by an overwhelming majority (604 for and 20 against) an emergency resolution on forced labor by Uyghurs. At the initiative of the text, Raphaël Glucksmann ensures that he will not be satisfied ” words “ more “Will demand facts”. “They obtained from the Chinese language that was supposed to satisfy us to ensure that this investment agreement was validated. But will slave camps and businesses like Huafu be closed? “
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