Russia's invasion of Ukraine posed a rare danger that united European countries, whereas China is not viewed as an imminent threat.
DPA
06 April 2023, China, Beijing: Chinese President Xi Jinping (C) pose with French President Emmanuel Macron and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen (R) before their meeting in Beijing.
Russia’s war on Ukraine was a wake-up call for European leaders.
For over a decade, Russian President Vladimir Putin deployed increasingly muscular tactics in Georgia, Crimea, Syria and even on the streets of Salisbury, but this did little to deter many European states from maintaining strong links with Moscow — especially trade.
The Rubicon was crossed, however, with the 2022 invasion prompting most European capitals to rapidly reassess and revise their ties to Putin and his affiliates. Sanctions were levied, alternative energy supplies were frantically sought and those seen as close to Putin, like former Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich, had their assets seized.
Demetris Ioannides was responsible for crafting offshore structures that Roman Abramovich used to hide more than £760mn assets before he was sanctioned in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the statement said https://t.co/1uopaUZ3fz
What was remarkable was the unity of action among European governments when facing up to the perceived Russian threat.
The previous decade had been characterised by disunity among European leaders inside and outside the European Union, such as the divisions over Greece’s debt crisis or the bitter clashes between London and Brussels over Brexit.
Yet on Ukraine the response was near-unanimous. Not only did the EU unite to both support Kyiv and punish Moscow, but European states outside that bloc joined anti-Russian measures.
Not only did the EU unite to both support Kyiv and punish Moscow, but European states outside that bloc joined anti-Russian measures.
The creation of the European Political Community in 2022 to bring together a wider European forum of 47 states beyond the narrower group of 27 EU members was a marker of how the Ukraine war had, ironically, proved something of a continental unifier.
Moldova hosts the 2nd European Political Community Summit on 01 June 2023 at the Mimi Castle.
This contrasts sharply with current approaches to China. While European leaders agree on the threat posed by Moscow, they are more varied towards Beijing.
London is now increasingly echoing Washington's hard line on China, with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak recently calling China the "biggest challenge," to global security. President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, has similarly become more critical.
Yet at the same time, over half of EU members have signed up to China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), mostly in eastern and southern Europe.
Some states, such as Hungary and Greece have pushed back on attempts to demonise China and restrict what they see as much-needed investment. Though the Ukraine war may have brought Europeans together, could coming debates on China pull them apart?
Unity on Russia
Europe's collective response to Russia's 2022 invasion was not guaranteed. Economically, many states depended on Russia for energy supplies, notably Germany, Poland, Italy, Czechia, and Hungary.
Meanwhile Britain — no longer in the EU but still a key European player — had received considerable investment from Russian oligarchs like Abramovich. At the same time, Cyprus similarly was a haven for Russian money.
Politically, Hungary's leader, Viktor Orban, enjoyed close ties to the Kremlin. Indeed, many speculated that Vladimir Putin had banked on the Europeans pursuing their own interests and remaining divided when he planned his invasion.
But such assumptions proved mistaken.
London is now increasingly echoing Washington's hard line on China, with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak recently calling China the "biggest challenge," to global security. Yet over half of EU members have signed up to China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), mostly in eastern and southern Europe.
European states united on sanctions and aid for Ukraine, with the EU committing up to $30bn worth of aid so far to Kyiv. European states outside the EU added to this with Britain, for example, supplying a further $10bn in military and financial aid.
Data from the Ukraine Support Tracker shows that, as a single country, the U.S. has provided by far the most #aid to #Ukraine, followed by EU institutions ($37.2 billion), the UK ($7.5 billion), Germany ($5.8 billion) and Canada ($5.1 billion). pic.twitter.com/mWO7TrxF18
European governments were similarly united on Ukrainian refugees, welcoming millions across the continent. EU leaders further agreed in March 2022, barely a month after the invasion, to decrease their dependence on Russian gas, with Europe's largest importer of Russian energy – Germany – managing to wean itself off in less than a year.
The Hungary exception
It wasn't all smooth sailing.
Hungary repeatedly criticised the EU's sanctions on Russia and Orban has often proved an exception in the united European front. On several occasions he blocked aid packages to Ukraine, forcing Brussels to seek alternative solutions.
Orban's relationship with the EU as a whole is at a nadir, recently comparing the EU with Hitler and Napoleon Bonaparte. Yet for all his rhetoric Orban has not actually broken ranks and derailed European unity.
The same is true of other EU states.
Cyprus enjoyed close ties with Russia before the invasion but agreed to toe Brussels' line on Putin. Ioannis Kasoulidis, foreign minister of Cyprus, told the Financial Times, "We had no choice. Our decision was to support the EU and the solidarity of the union." This is despite the costs to Cyprus' economy of losing valuable investment from Russian exiles.
Outside the EU, there has been further opposition to confronting Russia from European states. Turkey has insisted on neutrality, much to its Nato allies' frustration, while Belarus and the unrecognised breakaway republic of Transnistria are firm Russian allies and not part of the conversation.
Serbia, historically and culturally close to Russia, has also remained neutral and not joined sanctions, but it has quietly pivoted closer to the EU, which its leadership ultimately hopes to join. In line with EU sanctions, it has ended its reliance on Russian oil, importing instead from Iraq.
But these European exceptions are notable for their relatively small number. With the non-EU governments of the UK, Norway, Iceland, Albania, North Macedonia, and Moldova all joining the EU in sanctioning Russia, the vast majority of European states appear united in their firm opposition to the invasion.
The willingness of nations further afield like the Caucasus to join the new European Political Community suggests that even those not willing to join sanctions are keen to show a general unity. It is notable that Russia and Belarus are the only European states not to be members.
The willingness of nations further afield like the Caucasus to join the new European Political Community suggests that even those not willing to join sanctions against Moscow are keen to show a general unity.
Division on China
Relative continent-wide unity on Russia contrasts starkly with positions on China. Beijing's economic influence in Europe has expanded in recent years.
Chinese President Xi Jinping, left, gestures while speaking to Russian President Vladimir Putin during their meeting at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, March 20, 2023.
Two-thirds of EU member states have signed memoranda of understanding to join the BRI, and significant infrastructural investments have already begun. These include the refurbishment of Piraeus Port in Greece and the Budapest-Belgrade Railway in Hungary.
Outside of the EU, China has invested significant sums in Turkey, Serbia, and smaller western Balkan states like Montenegro. The United States insists this should be a concern to Brussels and European governments in general.
In recent years under successive presidents, Washington has upped its war of words with Beijing, urging its allies to shift from seeing China as an economic partner to a strategic threat.
While some European governments are coming around to this view, many reject it, either privately or explicitly, welcoming Beijing's investment in general and the BRI in particular.
While Washington adopted a hostile stance towards China under Donald Trump in 2017, European states have been far slower. For a long time, the EU and other European governments had been careful not to take sides in growing tensions between Washington and Beijing.
European Commission Executive Vice President Frans Timmermans and China's Vice Premier Ding Xuexiang prior to a meeting at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing, China, 04 July 2023.
This has recently shifted. Britain, which in the 2010s declared a 'golden age' of Chinese-UK relations, stated in the run-up to the G7 summit in Japan in that China was now a 'challenge'.
Germany, France, and Italy then joined the UK in agreeing with other G7 members to 'de-risk' trade relations with Beijing, divesting from sensitive elements of China's economy.
This, in turn, echoed the surprisingly hostile language of Ursula von der Leyen at a speech in Beijing in April, where she seemed to criticise the increasingly authoritarian turn of China's leadership.
In the last decades China has become an economic powerhouse and a key global player.
It is now reducing its dependency on the world while increasing the world's dependency on itself.
Europeans have taken other measures against China. In 2021 the EU announced the creation of a 'Global Gateway' fund, aimed at countering the BRI.
While China was not mentioned, most interpreted the fund as a way of countering Chinese 'development diplomacy' by offering developing states an alternative source of infrastructural investment and, potentially, keeping them out of Beijing's orbit.
More recently, Italy indicated it would leave the BRI, being the only G7 signatory, seemingly pressured to do so by other G7 members.
Pro-China voices?
However, while the largest European economies – those that have less need for Chinese investment – are shifting, others are more reluctant. Greece has been a vocal critic of attempts to develop a united EU-wide anti-China policy, having received substantial investment.
Austria and, of course, Hungary, have similarly voiced opposition. All three were strongly opposed to an EU-wide ban on Huawei, for example. Hungary appears to be the most pro-China voice within the EU, as well as the most pro-Russian.
In August 2022 the Chinese company CATL announced it would open its second European battery plant in Hungary, an investment of €7.3 billion, seemingly cementing Budapest's growing closeness to Beijing.
Greece, Austria and Hungary were strongly opposed to an EU-wide ban on Huawei. Hungary appears to be the most pro-China voice within the EU, as well as the most pro-Russian.
Outside of the EU, Serbia has also received considerable investment from China and is careful to tread a fine line between Brussels and Beijing.
Ambiguity to China is not restricted to the poorer European economies.
France is cautious about taking too harsh a stance towards Beijing. While President Emmanuel Macron signed up to the 'de-risking' strategy agreed upon at the G7, a few weeks before he had visited Beijing and insisted Europe should not be dragged into a confrontation between China and the US.
While France recognises the potential military threat from China and is planning its defence strategy accordingly, Paris seems to reject the confrontational rhetoric favoured by Washington and Macron appears more muted than von der Leyen.
Similarly, in Britain, the opposition Labour Party that is likely to win the next election, have urged more nuance on China than Prime Minister Sunak's recent approach.
Shadow Foreign Secretary David Lammy has urged cooperation with Beijing in areas such as climate change while condemning its human rights abuses and threatening behaviour.
That said, some suggest China's influence in Europe has been damaged by its neutral stance on the Ukraine war. While Eastern Europeans previously welcomed Chinese investment and the BRI, Beijing's perceived pro-Moscow policy has prompted some to reconsider.
The Atlantic Council's Sona Muzikarova has argued that this contributed to the Baltic States' decision last year to exit the '17+1' cooperation mechanism for China and the European members of the BRI.
While France recognises the potential military threat from China and is planning its defence strategy accordingly, Paris seems to reject the confrontational rhetoric favoured by Washington and Macron appears more muted than von der Leyen.
Likewise, the decision by new Czech president Petr Pavel's first diplomatic call to Taiwan, much to Beijing's outrage, might be linked to a cooling in Prague's enthusiasm for Chinese investment.
While these moves might not represent an embracing of Washington's more confrontational approach, it suggests the picture is more complex than simply Eastern Europe being favourable to Beijing while Western Europe is hostile.
An unclear future
European governments, both within and outside the EU, are therefore not neatly aligned in camps on China but rather occupy a range of positions from Hungary's enthusiasm to Britain's (current) hostility.
While some are seemingly open to shifting toward Washington's line of confrontation others are pushing back.
The White House will hope that the dial is slowly shifting in its favour, and, over time, more and more states will be persuaded of Beijing's ill intent. This might eventually allow for a (more or less) united European front against China, akin to the unity seen against Russia after 2022.
But the US could be disappointed.
A Ukrainian serviceman of the 3rd Assault Brigade fires a 122mm mortar towards Russian positions at the front line, near Bakhmut, Donetsk region, Ukraine, Sunday, July 2, 2023.
The united response to Russia might have been the exception rather than the rule. It has long proved difficult for the EU to agree on foreign policy positions, let alone the wider European continent, given the divergent interests of the 27 or 47 states involved.
Russia's invasion of Ukraine was a rare imminent danger that could be viewed as a clear threat by most European governments. China currently offers no such threat and so it is far harder to achieve the same decisive unity.
A dramatic escalation, such as a major confrontation between Beijing and Washington or a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, might change this collective calculus, but without this, it is hard to see the same level of unity emerging as occurred on Russia.
