China seeks to separate business with Europe from war between Russia and Ukraine

The institutions of the European Union and the governments of the Old Continent are very disturbed by China’s attitude towards Russia’s war against the Ukraine. They believe China could do more and this he doesn’t care if the war ends because in doing so it weakens a Russia that is increasingly dependent on it.

European anger is such that the latest package of sanctions against Russia, which is being negotiated in Brussels in recent weeks, provides for the possibility of sanction third-country companies to help Moscow dodge sanctions. A possibility that aims at Turkish, Armenian, Kazakh, Kyrgyz companies, but above all at various large Chinese multinationals.

Meanwhile, Chinese diplomacy is touring Europe to try to be European Separate war from business. Foreign Minister Qin Gang is traveling through Berlin, Paris and Oslo this week with the same message: let’s not ruin business over our differences over Ukraine and Russia.

Qin Gang told Berlin that Chinese companies “maintain normal trade and cooperative relations” with Russian companies and that this “should not be affected”. It was his diplomatic way of showing that China I would reject any type of European sanction to their companies doing business with Moscow.

Business

Europeans say that “normal” relationships include, for example, sale of Chinese precision electronics which allow Russia to equip the guidance systems of its medium- and long-range missiles that are hitting Ukrainian cities.

Europeans have so far not exactly responded with kind words to this attempt to separate war and trade. In Berlin, Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock told the Chinese Foreign Minister that “neutrality (China claims to be neutral in war) means siding with the aggressor and that is why we are guided by the principle of clarifying that We are on the victim’s side.”

Next to him at the press conference, Qin Gang listened with a frown. He said that “the issue of Ukraine is very complex” and that “China neither caused the war nor is it a part of it, but is engaged in peace negotiations”. Europeans believe that the Chinese peace plan, which not even Russia has paid much attention to, is pro-Russian.

The visit continues to France, where it should do better after President Emmanuel Macron’s trip to China in early April, where he defended the need to continue doing business between China and Europe and that Europeans should not follow the United States in all their decisions. United States, especially if Washington and China continue to fuel their clashes.

For France

Macron’s words made several European countries feel bad, those who want to maintain better relations with the United States. And they have gone very well with China, which does not want the European Union to form a seamless bloc with the United States.

In Berlin, the Chinese foreign minister repeated some of the slogans that Macron has been repeating for some time, such as defending a “strategic autonomy” European Union, a way to explain a lesser dependence on other powers, including the United States, in matters of Defense.

European diplomacy has believed for months that China wants to see Russia made more vulnerable by war in order to become more dependent on China at the same time, but for the same reason it does not want to push Russia towards a ceasefire or real peace negotiations nor does he want a crushing military defeat that puts Vladimir Putin’s leadership at risk.