BRUSSELS (AP) — Chinese President Xi Jinping has had a busy few weeks receiving Western allies seeking warmer ties with the world's second-largest economy.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney struck a trade deal slashing tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles and Canadian canola oil.
U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer landed in Beijing this week to repair ties that have been strained for years, and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz is expected there next month. Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo also was among the latest leaders from Europe to shake hands with Xi.
In a major shift to the world order since President Donald Trump took office again, America’s closest partners are exploring opportunities with China following clashes with Trump over tariffs and his demands to take over Greenland from NATO ally Denmark. Despite the risk of irking Trump, they are resetting relations with a country long seen as a top adversary to many Western allies and the top economic rival to the U.S.
“We’re engaging broadly, strategically with open eyes,” Carney said at the World Economic Forum meeting last week in Davos, Switzerland, shortly after he returned from Beijing. “We actively take on the world as it is, not wait around for a world we wish to be.”
Some leaders, lawmakers and experts lament a shift that could tip the balance in Beijing's favor at Washington's expense, while others say China is as much of a challenge as the U.S. because both exert pressure for their own interests. Either way, how countries are aligning themselves with the world's two superpowers is changing.
"Instead of creating a united front against China, we’re pushing our closest allies into their arms,” U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told a hearing this week.
When asked by a reporter about Starmer's Beijing visit, Trump said it was “very dangerous for them to do that.”
“And it’s even more dangerous, I think, for Canada to get into business with China,” said Trump, who himself is expected to visit Beijing in April. "Canada is not doing well. They’re doing very poorly. And you can’t look at China as the answer.”
European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas acknowledged that China poses a long-term challenge because of its “economic coercive practices,” but added, “like I say, reach out to different partnerships, with different countries across the world.”
While Europe is reconsidering its strategic playbook, “it's not a China pivot,” said Una Aleksandra Bērziņa-Čerenkova, director of the Latvian Institute of International Affairs in Riga. ”It's a pivot towards sort of fending for Europe as a bloc.”
Europe's quandary with the US and China
With a desire to bypass EU leadership in Brussels, Beijing is engaging one-on-one with European capitals, said Alicia Gracia-Herrero, an Asia-Pacific economist at the French investment bank Natixis and an expert on Europe’s relations with China.
China wants to keep the status quo with Europe: easy access to affluent consumers while offering few concessions to European businesses in the Chinese market, she said.
“They need Europe, but they don’t need to fight for Europe," Gracia-Herrero said.
Tim Rühlig, senior analyst at the European Union Institute for Security Studies in Paris, sees an irreversible shift in Europe's relations with the world's two largest economies.
“For the U.S., it has been Greenland. For China, it has been the October rare earth export controls,” he said. “Both of these developments have, in my view, substantially contributed to a European understanding that we face two major powers that are not shy to bully the EU.”
European leaders are visiting China for largely the same reasons Trump will: China’s sizable economy, its role in global affairs and a need to establish reliable communication channels.
“Everyone goes to Beijing, including the guy who doesn’t want us to go to China,” said Joerg Wuttke, former president of the EU Chamber of Commerce in China and now partner of the consultancy DGA Group.
Canada leads the way
In 2024, Justin Trudeau, then Canada's prime minister, acted in lockstep with the Biden administration to levy a 100% tariff on Chinese electric vehicles to protect the U.S. auto industry.
On Carney's highly watched visit to Beijing this month — the first by a Canadian prime minister in eight years — he slashed the tariff in return for lower import rates on Canadian farm products. Carney called the Canada-China trade relationship “more predictable," a swipe at Trump's tariff threats on Canada.
After Carney's return, Trump threatened to impose a 100% tariff on Canada over its China trade deal. Carney called it a bluster.
In Davos, Carney condemned coercion by great powers on smaller countries without naming Trump. “Middle powers must act together, because if we’re not at the table, we’re on the menu,” he said.
Those words have resonated across Europe.
European nations are recalibrating ties with Beijing
Starmer took a big step this week, becoming the first British prime minister to visit China in eight years. The countries have been at odds on issues including security, Chinese technology and Beijing's crackdown on pro-democracy protests in the former British colony of Hong Kong.
But this week, Starmer and Xi called for a strategic partnership. “Working together on issues like climate change, global stability during challenging times for the world is precisely what we should be doing as we build this relationship in the way that I’ve described,” Starmer told Xi in Beijing.
The trip has yielded a raft of business announcements and government agreements, including lower Chinese tariffs on Scotch whisky and 30-day visa-free travel to China for British tourists and business visitors.
Days earlier, Orpo, the Finnish prime minster, sat down with Chinese Premier Li Qiang and signed a deal to cooperate on sustainable construction, energy and animal disease management.
A Finnish government statement said Orpo also called on China to help achieve a lasting peace in Ukraine, noted the trade imbalance and called attention to human rights issues.
French President Emmanuel Macron, Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin and South Korean President Lee Jae Myung also visited in past weeks.
Now, Merz is set to visit Beijing for the first time as Germany's chancellor. He has taken a tougher stance on China than his predecessors and is expected to reset relations while addressing some of his country's concerns: the trade deficit and dependence on China for critical minerals.
As Europe and other U.S. allies inch closer to Beijing, some analysts warned of dangerous divisions in the West.
“It will be impossible for the U.S. and Western countries to unite to, as appropriate, either isolate China or set and enforce conditions for connectivity and cooperation,” said Scott Kennedy, senior adviser for Chinese business and economics at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
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Tang reported from Washington.