EU says China will take advantage of Russian defeat in Ukraine

Foreign policy chief Josep Borrell urges ‘coherent strategy’ towards Beijing’s ambitions.

The EU’s chief diplomat has warned that China will “take geopolitical advantage” of a Russian defeat in Ukraine and that Brussels needs to respond to Beijing’s global ambitions.

Josep Borrell, the bloc’s high representative for foreign policy, has urged member states to find a “coherent strategy” to deal with China that responds to both Beijing’s rising nationalism and a “hardening of the US-China competition”.

“The China issue is much more complex than the Russia issue,” Borrell wrote in a private letter to EU foreign ministers seen by the Financial Times. “China’s ambition is clearly to build a new world order with China in its centre . . . A Russian defeat in Ukraine will not derail China’s trajectory. China will manage to take geopolitical advantage of it,” he added.

The letter was pitched as a starting point for two days of discussions between EU foreign ministers starting on Friday to draft a new policy towards Beijing which EU leaders are set to discuss next month.

Click here to read the full article

Share
Scroll to Top