Europe: The Disunited Front

America’s alliance with Europe seems to be something less than a united front. No sooner did President Biden impose new technology trade limits on Communist China than — incroyable, mais vrai — President Macron fetches up at Beijing, following Chancellor Scholz’s visit, to strengthen trade ties with President Xi’s regime. It’s a troubling breach in what ought to be Western unity against a rising adversary. Mr. Macron would have the world believe his trip is about peace for Ukraine. He flatters the Chinese party boss by suggesting the tyrant could play a “major role” in resolving the conflict there. It’s more accurate to see Mr. Macron’s visit as a signal that France, alongside Western Europe, “has chosen to align with President Xi’s vision of a new world order over the current American-led one,” as our Aleksandra Gadzala-Tirziu puts it.How else to explain Mr. Macron’s delusion that Mr. Xi could take “a shared responsibility for peace” in Ukraine and, as the French president proposes, help “bring Russia to its senses”? The same logic, if that’s the word, is behind the remark by the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, that it is “neither viable — nor in Europe’s interest — to decouple from China.” She is urging a focus on “de-risk,” to coin a phrase. Nikkei’s London Financial Times hails Ms. von der Leyen for offering an “approach that allows the EU to be more proactive and discerning,” with an eye to Europe’s “reliance on China’s vast market for sales and profits.” Indeed, as our Donald Kirk reports, Mr. Macron was accompanied in China by top business executives and a deal was announced for a sale of 160 Airbus jets to China, among other lucrative agreements. The FT takes this to mean “commercial interests still hold sway” in driving Europe’s foreign policy. We can’t say we’re surprised or even horrified (may they earn enough to pay their NATO share). We did, though, notice how the “credulous Europeans” seemed all too eager to take the bait of Mr. Xi’s charm offensive. The FT called it “China’s desire for a diplomatic reset.” In effect, it’s an effort to drive a wedge between America and its purported allies. The success of China’s campaign reflects a willing suspension of disbelief by the European mandarins. Feature China’s effort to play down its pledge of “no-limits partnership” with Russia. Chinese officials, the FT says, have been telling Europeans that Beijing thinks “Putin is crazy,” and that China isn’t going to “simply follow Russia.” Yet who could believe Communist China after Hong Kong?Were Mr. Macron and the EU serious about helping Ukraine, they would build up their own military capabilities. Even the New York Times, of all papers, is allowing that the war “is the greatest challenge to European security since the end of the Cold War” and that “the Europeans have missed the opportunity to step up their own defense.” The war has instead “reinforced Europe’s military dependence on the United States.” Germany, meantime, is dragging its feet over arming Ukraine with advanced Leopard tanks, purportedly over what the Financial Times calls German “guilt and fear” over its past. America had to first promise to send over some of its own M1 Abrams tanks. Mr. Macron’s lofty dream of European “strategic autonomy” — via its own military force — “has proved hollow,” reports the New York Times. So let’s see if we get this straight. America still bears the burden for the defense of Europe from Russia — while Moscow wages war on Ukraine and threatens Eastern Europe. Monsieur Macron and the EU in turn opt to cultivate renewed friendship, and deeper trade ties, with China, Russia’s main backer. Even the FT’s editors grouse that Mr. Macron’s idea of France as a “balancing power” in global politics is causing “unhelpful ambiguity.” Got it?

Europe: The Disunited Front

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