With Germany due to take over the rotating presidency of the Council of the EU in the second half of 2020, Merkel made plans to host Xi Jinping together with her fellow EU leaders at a summit in Leipzig. Merkel’s aim, according to officials involved in the planning, was to shift the focus from confrontation to cooperation with Beijing. She was determined to explore opportunities for joint action on climate, and to break the seven-year impasse in negotiations over an EU–China investment agreement.
The chancellor’s plan to put EU–China relations at the heart of Germany’s EU presidency was thwarted by the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the response to which consumed Berlin’s attention. Although the Leipzig summit was cancelled, Merkel’s readiness to do a deal with Beijing remained, and as the German presidency drew to a close, in December 2020, she seized on a series of last-minute concessions from Beijing to push through the EU–China Comprehensive Agreement on Investment (CAI). The deal has come under fierce criticism on both sides of the Atlantic, mainly for the way it was done – behind closed doors over the year-end holiday period, with little apparent regard for an incoming US administration that had promised to repair transatlantic ties and work closely with Europe on the challenges presented by China. Beijing’s decision, just three months after the CAI was agreed in principle, to sanction members of the European Parliament, politicians from several EU member states, as well as academics, the Berlin-based Mercator Institute for China Studies (MERICS) and Denmark’s Alliance of Democracies Foundation, has raised doubts about whether the agreement will ever win formal EU approval. Indeed, in May 2021 members of the European Parliament voted overwhelmingly to halt the ratification process for the investment deal until China’s sanctions against its members are removed. That seems unlikely to happen any time soon. But Merkel’s push for an agreement was revealing of her thinking: ‘I believe that it is very important for the EU to have its own China policy,’ she said when asked, in February 2021, about her reluctance to join with Joe Biden in pushing back against China.
While Germany is often criticized for overseeing a ‘soft’ EU approach to China, driven by business interests, other big stakeholders like France, Italy or Spain have rarely pushed back against Berlin’s strategy of engagement over confrontation.
Whether the rush to conclude the CAI in the final days of 2020 really brought Europe closer to a common China policy is questionable. Merkel has often spoken about the need for the EU to forge a united position on China, only to go against the European (and even German) tide on issues like 5G. Not all EU countries were on board with her plan for the Leipzig summit, with some viewing the agenda she had sketched out as being heavily slanted to her government’s own priorities. But it would be wrong to describe Germany’s policy towards China under Merkel’s leadership as being clearly outside the European consensus. While Germany is often criticized for overseeing a ‘soft’ EU approach to China, driven by business interests, other big stakeholders like France, Italy or Spain have rarely pushed back against Berlin’s strategy of engagement over confrontation.
French President Emmanuel Macron quickly got behind Merkel’s push to conclude the EU’s investment agreement with China. And he has arguably been more timid than Merkel when it comes to talking publicly about human rights abuses in Xinjiang and Hong Kong. On a tour of five EU countries in the late summer of 2020, China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, received a much warmer welcome in Paris, where Macron met him behind closed doors, than he did in Berlin. In the German capital, he was denied a meeting with Merkel and was asked tough questions about Xinjiang, Hong Kong and Taiwan at a news conference with his German counterpart Heiko Maas.
But while Germany may not be alone in Europe in favouring a measured approach towards Beijing, it has set a tone by refusing to stipulate red lines in its relationship with China despite the country’s authoritarian tilt at home and more aggressive behaviour abroad. Under Merkel, Germany has continued to promote the self-serving (and now widely discredited) idea of past decades that continued economic engagement with China can bring about political change. ‘I still believe that change can be achieved through trade,’ said Altmaier, a close ally of the chancellor, in July 2020, as China was deepening its crackdown in Hong Kong. Notably, German officials have criticized the annual 17+1 meetings between representatives of eastern and southern European countries and China’s leadership to discuss investment opportunities. This has reinforced the view, in some parts of Europe, that Germany has a double standard when it comes to China: it is fine for the economic heavyweight to pursue opportunities with Beijing, but when smaller states do the same thing they are accused of undermining European unity. For all her talk of the need for a common European stance on China, Merkel has failed to set out a convincing vision of what a new approach – one that transcends German interests and takes real account of how China has changed under Xi – might look like.
