EU and China approve Comprehensive Agreement on Investment (CAI)

[Zinneke]

Always amuses me when I hear Brussels did this, Brussels believes that. The fact is that whilst DG Trade and a whole bunch of corporate lobby groups are popping the champagne open over this deal, another DG will be tearing its hair out. Maybe not as powerful as DG Trade, but definitely with support in national capitals - the most notable exception being the increasingly naive Berlin.

DG Trade can't see the wood from the trees. They and some of the Single Market orientated DGs have zero strategic long term views, they are all from a school of thought of "normative foreign policy", patting themselves on the back for being amazing at writing regulations - when China breaks and encourages the breaking of most international regulations anyway. Meet with some EEAS officials and there is just a sigh and a "well...." - they know the score better than the Bruges College kids.

More and more people in the EU foreign policy bubble are coming to the same conclusion as the Americans. Its not about defending Western values or whatever. Its simply the fact that China is acting as a rogue state when it comes to their international obligations, especially so as an emerging Great Power.

And by the way, I disagree urizitsu that this turn towards a hostile relationship with China is somehow about how China administers itself. China's governance model hasn't changed, the guy at the top and his ideology and saber rattling policies has been the fundemental change. And since its ascension to the WTO it hasn't fulfilled its commitments. It just keeps undercutting EU and US labour because we actually have labour standards and they don't. They have ethnic minorities to put in labour camps.


Nobody, not a single US or EU official has called for regime change in China because they know the consequences are likely dire (and its nigh-impossible anyway). Let's not caricaturize us China sceptics please.

[Zinneke]

I'm amazed to discover I' m a citizen of a pro-Chinese organization.

OMG, what can we do? The Chinese are going to implant the 5G chip into us!

. Nobody, not a single US or EU official has called for regime change in China because they know the consequences are likely dire (and its nigh-impossible anyway). Let's not caricaturize us China sceptics please.

I get your point and think that criticism and scepticism are correct and neccessary. It's only that you don't need to be a PRC fan to laugh at certain hyperbolic rants. Also, I'm not a PRC fan but in no way I am willing to support US imperialism and the return to the Cold War. The world is changing and turning more complicated.  Multilateralism is the way to go

Multilateralism doesn't work when one of the major hegemonic powers doesn't believe in the basic concept of the rule of law.

[Zinneke]

I'm amazed to discover I' m a citizen of a pro-Chinese organization.

OMG, what can we do? The Chinese are going to implant the 5G chip into us!

. Nobody, not a single US or EU official has called for regime change in China because they know the consequences are likely dire (and its nigh-impossible anyway). Let's not caricaturize us China sceptics please.

I get your point and think that criticism and scepticism are correct and neccessary. It's only that you don't need to be a PRC fan to laugh at certain hyperbolic rants. Also, I'm not a PRC fan but in no way I am willing to support US imperialism and the return to the Cold War. The world is changing and turning more complicated.  Multilateralism is the way to go

Multilateralism doesn't work when one of the major hegemonic powers doesn't believe in the basic concept of the rule of law.

I suppose it says something that I had to think a wee while about who you were referring to there.

Comparing apples and oranges. I'm also talking about how the rule of law is applied internally. Fact is in China there is not an application of the rule of law. I can cite Fukuyama for this, he explains it far better than I ever could in the origins of political order, but the point is that even the US occasionally behaves as a rogue state, China has it built within its political and economic culture.

I'm amazed to discover I' m a citizen of a pro-Chinese organization.

OMG, what can we do? The Chinese are going to implant the 5G chip into us!

. Nobody, not a single US or EU official has called for regime change in China because they know the consequences are likely dire (and its nigh-impossible anyway). Let's not caricaturize us China sceptics please.

I get your point and think that criticism and scepticism are correct and neccessary. It's only that you don't need to be a PRC fan to laugh at certain hyperbolic rants. Also, I'm not a PRC fan but in no way I am willing to support US imperialism and the return to the Cold War. The world is changing and turning more complicated.  Multilateralism is the way to go

Multilateralism doesn't work when one of the major hegemonic powers doesn't believe in the basic concept of the rule of law.

Do you believe other hegemonic powers are observant of the laws when their interests are at play? The US are more democratic than China, but this does not imply they are charity angels. I'm not in favour of joining the New Silk Road as Italy did,  I think we must restore the good faith between Europe and the US now that Trump is gone.  But we need to establish an acceptable relationship with China and avoid a Cold War escenario, because we and the rest of the world have a lot to lose and nothing to win there. Ideally Europe should have a common foreign policy and be a major advocate of multilateralism, while maintaining a close relationship with the USA

I'm ok with you believing this, but you have to understand that for some progressives such as myself this is an unacceptable position. To the point of thinking that you, Velasco, cannot call yourself a serious progressive if you don't stand up to what is going in Xinjiang right now, instead hiding behind Cold War narratives of "its all US imperial propaganda!" just through the argument of guilt by association. Nor can you call yourself a serious progressive as you watch our labour standards be watered down by trade deals such as the one discussed in this thread.

Of course, taken to its extreme, my form of progressivism becomes a useful idiot of the neo-cons (cfr Tony Blair). But I'm not advocating regime change. Just sanctions and a partial isolation of the 1.4 billion superpower that is destroying our values and economic rights we fought for slowly but surely - under the false pretenses.

And the CPC is by no means some evil organisation - and I'm even willing to accept their success in lifting millions out of poverty is a great thing. But simply blindly ignoring the Xi Jingping regime as an inflection point and the economic realities of absorbing a 1.4 billion population economy with no rule of law and no labour standards into the world economy is just naive.

[Zinneke]

Of course, WW2 analogies work both ways. Many also thought concessions and the policy of non-confrontation with Hitler was the way to go, as they wanted to avoid WW1. Hitler was already rounding up Jews and putting them in labour camps. It is all eerily familiar.

Again the comparison with Iraq is just a red herring. Nobody hawkish on China is suggesting an Iraq style solution, not even the crazed neo-cons in the Beltway.