Chronic. Chappatte’s drawing in the Swiss daily Time summarizes the context of the first meeting of Russian and American presidents, Vladimir Putin and Joe Biden, in Geneva, Wednesday, June 16. In place of the ancient terrestrial globe, located between the two leaders, in the library of Villa La Grange, the designer has placed an enormous Chinese vase. That’s not to say Beijing was the center of the game, but it was a bulky presence.
Biden-Putin Summit https://t.co/Q2fLwG1ryU https://t.co/ldphsHVoNV
China dominated President Biden’s European trip to Cornwall at the G7, as in Brussels, at NATO and in front of European Union leaders. It is the center of its foreign policy. His priority goes to this new cold war of the XXIe century between the two leading economic powers in the world. But this alliance of democracies that he advocated against authoritarian states before leaving Washington did not really flourish in Carbis Bay, as in Brussels.
Behind the welcome images of a return to normal relations between the United States and Europe after four years of diplomatic upheaval led by Donald Trump, the Chinese question has divided European allies. Of course, the G7 denounced human rights violations in China and Beijing’s interventions in Hong Kong and Taiwan, and NATO called China a “systemic challenge”, as Washington wanted.
“The G7 is not a club hostile to China”, said Emmanuel Macron, who had previously recalled that China was far from the North Atlantic on a map, while Chancellor Angela Merkel is anxious not to cut economic bridges with Beijing. The project to aid infrastructure for developing countries, “Build Back Better World”, presented to the G7 as an alternative to China’s “silk roads”, has remained unclear.
A taste of unfinished business
Europeans were reassured to see an American president singing the praises of Europe and symbolically recognizing the weight of its institutions, during a meeting with the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and her counterpart of the European Council , Charles Michel. But the visit leaves a taste of unfinished business. Europe, especially in the east, can once again count on Washington, within the framework of NATO, including in the face of cyber attacks, which was no longer obvious under Donald Trump. But these reassuring requests do not prevent, as was already the case with Barack Obama, that American priorities no longer go to the Old Continent, but to Asia.
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