should Europeans be neutral vis-à-vis Beijing?

Xi Jinping’s representative to the UN takes the monthly rotating presidency of the Security Council on Sunday. A ritual that is not exceptional since each member of the body directs its work every fifteen months. But in the current context of great tension between Westerners and Beijing, the exercise allows China to make its mark. Throughout the month of May, it will organize debates on multilateralism, of which it claims to be the champion on the condition that no one comes to interfere in its affairs in the name of universal human rights.

But also on the security of the Blue Helmets, of which it is today the first supplier country among the five permanent members of the Council, or on the results of the management of the Covid-19 pandemic in Africa, where its vaccine diplomacy has already supplied to 35 of the continent’s 54 countries.

A majority of European citizens prefer to remain neutral in the event of a Washington-Beijing confrontation

In the Security Council, it took a hard fight to obtain three declarations of condemnation of the repression of demonstrations in Burma by the junta. But these are not resolutions and even less sanctions against this ally of China in Asia. “You have to resist the temptation to indulge yourself,” confides a familiar Council diplomat, “this is the only place in the world where you can dine with the devil in the hope of making him change a little.”

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At a time when Joe Biden’s United States believes it must “cooperate with China when possible” but “confront it when necessary”, Westerners have understood that “the Chinese agenda lies in a logic of hegemony and seizure of power “, according to this source.

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If the EU continues to remain strategically undecided, it will only benefit China

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In a recent survey by the European Council of Foreign Relations (ECFR) of 15,000 citizens from ten EU countries, 60% of them believe that their own country should not have to support the United States by case of confrontation with China. This choice of neutrality between the two greatest world powers does not correspond to the capacity of the EU to endow its possible strategic autonomy with the force necessary to defend it.

According to Janka Oertel, the Asia specialist at ECFR, “if the EU continues to remain strategically undecided, this will only benefit China and create new risks of dependence on the EU. ‘her, which is exactly what the Chinese authorities want.

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