US-Europe relations

Chinese President Xi Jinping (left) and French President Emmanuel Macron (right) visit the garden of the residence of the Governor of Guangdong, on 7 April 2023, where Chinese President XI Jinping's father Xi Zhongxun lived. (Jacques Witt/AFP)

Macron's visit: China making a tear in the 'iron curtain' drawn by the US?

French President Emmanuel Macron’s visit to China was productive in several ways, with personal interaction between the two countries’ leaders as well as various agreements signed. However, the rest of Europe may not agree with Macron’s comments following the visit.
View of a fresco "Long Live the Ukrainian Resistance" is painted on a wall in the French capital Paris on 26 March 2022. (Joel Saget/AFP)

How the Ukraine war will reshape the EU’s approach to China and Indo-Pacific

The Ukraine war has made the EU, at least for now, more united than before and it is increasingly aligned with the US amid a reinvigoration of NATO. The grouping had erstwhile been seeking to forge a “third way” in playing a role in the Indo-Pacific free of the US-China binary construct. But as it moves closer to the US, will it be carried along by the “democracy versus autocracy” narrative and estrange itself from China to its own detriment?
The Taiwanese Representative Office sign in Vilnius, Lithuania, 20 January 2022. (Janis Laizans/Reuters)

Lithuania's 'name battle': Can the US end it in a dignified manner?

The row continues between China and Lithuania over the naming convention “Taiwanese Representative Office in Lithuania” as China continues to exert pressure via export blocks on Lithuania. The Lithuanian president has also chimed in, calling for the name of the office to be changed. However, this reeks of being a proxy war between the US and China over Taiwan. Han Yong Hong explains.
US President Joe Biden participates virtually during the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) meeting in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in Washington, DC, US, on 26 October 2021. Biden plans to provide Southeast Asia with more than $100 million in funding to fight the pandemic and tackle the climate crisis as his administration seeks to bolster ties with a region seeking to balance its growing economic reliance on China. (Tom Brenner/Bloomberg)

The EU and ASEAN should join hands in cajoling China and the US towards peace

The EU and ASEAN are supporters of a rules-based global system, says Joergen Oerstroem Moeller. As such, they can use their collective weight to persuade Washington and Beijing to focus less on their bilateral tensions and more on solving contemporary problems.
A tuktuk is parked at Camoes square in Lisbon on 14 July 2021. (Patricia de Melo Moreira/AFP)

Washington threatening Portugal to choose between China and the US?

Portugal has in the past decade developed very lucrative relations with China. Chinese investment significantly assisted its recovery from the 2008 global economic crisis. However, Lisbon’s increasingly close ties with Beijing have raised serious concerns in Washington.
Refrigerated tractor trailers used to store bodies of deceased people are seen at a temporary morgue, with the Statue of Liberty seen in the background, during the Covid-19 outbreak, in the Brooklyn borough of New York City, US, 13 May 2020. (Brendan McDermid/Reuters)

China is not the answer to America's problems

Analyst Zheng Weibin compares the current China-US competition to the Cold War, and notes that much of US domestic policy is in fact targeted at China, which perhaps distracts from the real domestic issues that the US should be tackling.
Vladimir Putin, Russia's president, left, and U.S. President Joe Biden, right, react at the start of the U.S. Russia summit at Villa La Grange in Geneva, Switzerland, on 16 June 2021. (Peter Klaunzer/Swiss Federal Office of Foreign Affairs/Bloomberg)

Can Biden 'set up' the US and Russia against China?

Chinese academic Zhang Jingwei notes that the recent meeting between US President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin was a step towards easing US-Russia relations. But fundamental tensions remain, not least due to NATO’s wariness of Russia and the US-China-Russia triangle.
Customers drink on reopened cafe terraces on Saint Germain in Paris, France, on 19 May 2021. (Nathan Laine/Bloomberg)

Is the China-EU investment deal doomed?

The Comprehensive Agreement on Investment (CAI) was effectively frozen by the European Parliament last week, in consideration of China’s human rights issues in Xinjiang and its sanctions on individuals and organisations from the EU. Zaobao correspondent Edwin Ong asks: will this be the end of the deal, or is there still hope of a revival?
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken (second from right) and national security adviser Jake Sullivan (right) speak with Politburo member and Director of the Office of the Central Commission for Foreign Affairs Yang Jiechi (second from left) and State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi (left) at the opening session of US-China talks at the Captain Cook Hotel in Anchorage, Alaska, US, 18 March 2021. (Frederic J. Brown/Pool via Reuters)

Are two camps forming around China and the US?

As China-US competition continues, economics professor Zhu Ying observes that two camps seem to be emerging. But it is not so straightforward as one camp being pro-US and another pro-China. The trilateral relationships of the US-EU-China and China-US-Russia will create pendulum swings.