Beijing, Spying Europe in a Pyretic State, Romances Berlin as Biden Stumbles Over His Own Complacency

For an indication of where Europe’s political future is heading, pass over tattered eastern frontiers for a moment and look to the country with the biggest economy and most tortuous past — look to Berlin. Beijing certainly is.This week, for the first time, Communist China dispatched its top security chief to Germany for high-level bilateral meetings that in the past were attended only by deputies. By choice or by exclusion America’s soft-spoken top statesman Secretary Blinken sat this one out, but more on that in a minute.The Chinese state-run news agency Xinhua reported that Chen Wenqing, a Politburo grandee and party secretary of the central political and legal affairs commission, attended the China-Germany high level security dialogue in the German capital. Mr. Wenqing, 63, made stops in Italy and Serbia before taking Berlin, as it were. Germany has a shrinking list of reasons not to embrace Beijing these days. Last week Germany’s Federal Statistics Office reported that “the People’s Republic of China is again Germany’s main trading partner.” Goods worth some $315 billion in exports and imports were traded between Germany and Communist China in 2022, followed by America with a trade volume of about $243 billion.Commercial matters, though, were not on the agenda, even though representatives from China’s ministry of industry and information technology went along for the ride. Beijing really wanted to woo Berlin on more strategic issues. Mr. Chen told his German interlocutors that China “always attached great importance to and actively supported law enforcement and security cooperation between the two countries and evoked “common security interests.”What those might be might have been discussed behind closed doors, but were not made public. It is no secret, however, that Germany’s place on the global stage has been given fresh prominence by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. To the extent that Berlin is sending tanks to Ukraine and a grateful President Zelensky even suggested that the UN Security Council should be expanded with seats for other countries, including Germany.Before his overtures to the Germans, Mr. Chen met at Rome with Italy’s foreign minister, Antonio Trajani. Mr. Chen told him that “cooperation between Italy and China is extensive and diverse, and there is great potential for cooperation in the security field.”Well, is there?Thanks largely but not only to Russia, and despite a reenergized NATO — an organization that President Macron once described as “brain dead” — much of the European security stew is in a pyretic state. Cool heads at Berlin are aware of this, which could explain why Chancellor Scholz is in no mood to poach a French or Chinese chair at Turtle Bay.So, on the one hand, the last thing Germany should be doing is giving Red China more entrée to the Continent than it already has. On the other hand, there is a growing weariness among some in Germany with the war in Ukraine writ large — coupled with a declining economy and the rise of the controversial party called Alternative for Germany — augurs a certain incipient disarray. National unity can no longer be taken for granted. Beijing, for one, probably approves the AfD’s firm opposition to Germany’s imposition of sanctions on Russia. Beijing, like Moscow, is only too ready to exploit the emerging gaps in European consensus on Ukraine and other issues. The Washington policy establishment continues to prioritize countering the Chinese threat in the Pacific, and with good reason. On September 25, the day before Mr. Wenqing arrived at Germany, the White House hosted the U.S.-Pacific Islands Forum Summit. With that parley President Biden sought to “renew our commitment to enhancing our partnership with the Pacific Islands, and the respective governments, to achieve our shared vision for a resilient Pacific region of peace, harmony, security, social inclusion.”If that sounds like the kind of kumbaya jargon wont to waft from Secretary Blinken’s podium, wherever it is at any given moment, it is not perceived as such at Beijing. Consider that last month Free China’s military took part in a live drill with the our army in the central Pacific island nation of Palau with the aim of testing MIM-104 Patriot missiles.That was reported in the Free Chinese press this week. Beijing’s gaze is fixed on Taipei like a cat to a mouse, but when it turns to Palau or Manila it sees American actions and, predictably, sees them as strategic challenges. With the Biden administration still incapable of articulating a long-term strategy on Ukraine — or Russia, for that matter — Beijing will try to upset the transatlantic applecart, as it were, any way it can. One way is by courting our most trusted European partners when they are growing more distracted by the day.Another is Huawei, which does a robust trade in Europe, or by pushing Italy to stick with the Belt and Road scheme. And by quietly snapping up strategic ports — Beijing is already a majority stakeholder in Greece’s Piraeus port, President Obama having missed the boat on that. Last spring Beijing’s envoy to Athens, Xiao Junzheng, paid a visit to the port of Alexandroupoli — now a major logistics hub for sending arms and supplies to Ukraine.Speaking to the Greek newspaper Kathimeri this week, the New York Times’s star columnist, Thomas Friedman, with some bluster credited Mr. Biden with “building an alliance in Europe to counter Putin.” That is debatable: the real foundation of the Western bulwark against Russia that has only come into sharp relief in the past two years actually started with the dogged determination of President Reagan against the Soviet Union. What Democrat today would admit that?

Beijing, Spying Europe in a Pyretic State, Romances Berlin as Biden Stumbles Over His Own Complacency

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