Russia's government has no intention of asking the European Union to end its sanctions and has sufficient "safety margins," a senior Russian Foreign Ministry official said today, according to state news agency RIA. "The EU is not the center of the universe," said Nikolai Kobrinets, head of the European cooperation department at the Russian Foreign Ministry."
Recall that a few hours earlier, Russian President Vladimir Putin accused the West of seeking new pretexts to announce sanctions on his country, stressing that its unprecedented punitive measures had been prepared in advance and would be imposed "in any case." Insisting that Russia was never prepared to sacrifice "its national interests and traditional values," Putin said that while it would not become a "closed country," it would not seek any further cooperation with Western companies in the foreseeable future.
The Kremlin also denied assessments in Washington and London that the Russian head of state was either misled or kept in the dark by his advisers. Britain's intelligence chief Jeremy Fleming claimed this week that President Putin's advisers were afraid to tell him "the truth", while US President Joe Biden yesterday spoke of "indications" that the Russian president had removed advisers and put some "under house arrest", saying he appeared "isolated".
"They just don't understand what's going on in the Kremlin. They don't understand President Putin and they don't understand our decision-making mechanism," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov countered yesterday (Thursday), according to the Russian news agency Interfax. Amid the ongoing war in Ukraine, diplomatic efforts to end the conflict continue, but so does the exchange of blame between Russia and the West, with progress still being sought.
Brussels will seek to dissuade Beijing from helping Russia
The EU will try to persuade China to refrain from giving aid to Russia to circumvent Western sanctions today at a digital summit between the two sides at which Beijing will seek to restart the relationship with Europe, which is being tested economically by the war in Ukraine.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Charles Michel, speaking on behalf of the 27, will hold a video conference with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang and then President Xi Jinping.
The talks "will focus on the role we are calling on China to play, to exert all the influence and pressure needed on Russia. This was not the original purpose of the summit" but "it became necessary," French Deputy Minister of State for European Affairs Clement Bon summed up yesterday.
"It is necessary to find out whether China will use its influence to declare a ceasefire" and organise "humanitarian corridors" or whether it will help "Moscow circumvent" the sanctions by increasing purchases of Russian hydrocarbons or offering financial aid, a senior European official said for his part.
"Strategic calculation"
Beijing refuses to condemn the Russian invasion of Ukraine. In early March, the Chinese government praised China's "rock-solid" friendship with Russia, while recalling Moscow's "reasonable" security concerns.
The Europeans are seeking to influence "the strategic calculation of Chinese leaders" by warning them of "the economic costs they will suffer if they offer support to Russia," according to analyst Gregor Stetz of the German MERICS institute.
The way China is reacting allows it "to remain on Russia's side without paying the price."
The way China is reacting allows it "to remain on Russia's side without paying the price. Unless more pressure is put on it, it will offer more help to (Russian President Vladimir) Putin," German MEP Reinhart Butitoffer (Greens) praises.
Yet the EU is captive to its interdependence with Beijing: it absorbs 15% of exports from the Asian giant, which supplies it with many key manufactured goods and ingredients. China also accounts for 10% of the 27 countries' exports and is a key market, especially for German industries.
The EU and China signed an ambitious investment agreement at the end of 2020, at Berlin's urging. But its ratification remains frozen amid European sanctions over alleged human rights abuses, such as forced labor, in Xinjiang province, as well as Beijing's retaliation against MEPs and European researchers. Another cause of friction: China's boycott of imports from Lithuania following the opening of a Taiwanese diplomatic mission in that country.
Friendship "without limits"
For Valerie Nicet of the French Foundation for Strategic Research, "the risk" is that China will sell at too high a price "its neutrality" to secure "concessions such as the resumption of negotiations on the investment agreement".
The other Wednesday, Russian diplomatic chief Sergei Lavrov, visiting China, received a reaffirmation of the two states' "no-holds-barred" friendship with the US in the name of building a "new global multipolar order," a vision that has Westerners worried about the emergence of what they call an "authoritarian" bloc.
"The idea that China will detach itself from Russia is illusory: once the war in Ukraine is over, the attention of the United States will turn primarily, and not in a friendly spirit, to China, which therefore has an interest in continuing its cooperation" with its neighbour, judges Sylvie Berman, former French ambassador to both Moscow and Beijing.
She reminded that China is far from isolated, that several countries (India, Pakistan, South Africa, Brazil) also avoid criticising Moscow.
For Beijing, the Europeans have allowed themselves to be drawn into a conflict whose instigator was Washington and which has revealed the vulnerabilities of the West.
"Positive action"?
Given its dependence on Russia's gas, "Europe probably shot itself in the foot" when it decided to follow the "American sanctions", the English-language Global Times, which often expresses Chinese nationalism, commented sarcastically. It rejected any link between EU-China relations and the crisis between Europeans and Russia over the war in Ukraine - issues which instead, for the senior European official, are "inextricably linked".
Asked about the summit yesterday, Chinese diplomatic spokesman Wang Wenbin said Beijing wants to continue "developing (bilateral) relations", wants there to be more "stability and positive energy in a complex and troubled global environment", without any mention of Ukraine by name.
For Wang Yiwei, an expert on Europe at Renmin University in Beijing, China, like the EU, hopes the war in Ukraine will end as soon as possible. "I imagine China will want to use this summit to discuss with the EU how to create conditions that would make it acceptable for Putin" to end what the Kremlin calls a "special military operation," he summed up.
China is concerned that European countries have adopted a hard line on foreign policy influenced by the US and has demanded that Brussels "rule out any outside interference" in the bilateral relationship.
With information from Cyprus Times
Contents of this article including associated images are belongs Cyprus Times
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