The journeys of a Chinese emperors are rare, and never random. So when Xi Jinping is in Europe this week, both the timing and the geography are important. Perhaps he is not even really traveling to Europe, but to emphasize that Xi’s China can do well without this Europe. Something he would like to show off to the rest of the world.
Xi Jinping’s announced meeting with Vladimir Putin may in several ways be decisive for the development of the war in Ukraine. Video: Dagbladet, AP. Program leader: Håvard TL Knutsen.
view more
His main stop is anyway the Serbian capital Belgrade. He is there to commemorate that on 7 May it was 25 years since Nato bombed the Chinese embassy in the city, killing three Chinese journalists. It was the beginning of the height of Western arrogance that would later lead to the US-led invasions and disasters in Afghanistan and Iraq. It is a matter that the Chinese president is happy to remind of.
NATO bombing of Serbia 25 years ago was without the approval of the UN Security Council, where both Russia and China were strongly opposed. The bombing was to stop the Serbs’ ethnic cleansing of the Albanians in Kosovo. And in addition to bombing Serbian military positions in and near Kosovo, which was necessary to stop a genocide, they also bombed the Serbian capital, Belgrade, which was not necessary to stop the genocide. But then NATO planes hit the Chinese embassy after mistakenly bombing, which triggered a wave of Chinese, nationalist, anti-Western sentiment.
Now it is political the exploitation of this mistake-bombing again political capital for the Chinese political leadership. And it is exploited for all it’s worth when Xi portrays the West as reckless and irresponsible, constantly setting the world on fire. Also included in the narrative is that it is not only Russia that is the aggressor in the war in Ukraine, but – again – NATO, which has irresponsibly approached Russia’s borders, and provoked Russia to go to war.
And that’s how it looks when Xi Jinping uses the embassy bombing 25 years ago as his political-ideological capital:
– The Chinese people value peace, but will never allow a historical tragedy to repeat itself. The friendship between China and Serbia, which is soaked in the blood that the two peoples bled together, has become a common memory for the two peoples, and will encourage both parties together to take great steps forward, Xi Jinping wrote in the Serbian newspaper Politika on Tuesday.
And Xi gives here expression of a continued sustainable reuse philosophy of recycled ideas that have been presented in the past, and which is perfectly suited to serve anyone who might be critical of Western hegemony and the use of power throughout history. One person who took great delight in the Chinese president’s tirades is the Russian warrior-president Vladimir Putin. Another is Serbian autocratic leader Aleksandar Vucic, who for a moment gets to shine, and play a role. Once again as one of history’s victims. And once again as the country that seems to choose wrongly – Russia – and not the EU. Moreover, Xi’s rhetoric resonates well in what is now called the Global South.
Xi has not said anything during his European tour that shakes his partnership-without-borders relationship with Putin’s Russia. It emphasizes the overall point that China will not let Putin lose the war in Ukraine. It is too dangerous, because it can destabilize Russia, and thus the entire geography of Central Asia, up to China’s border.
Monday and Tuesday Xi visited Paris and met French President Emmanuel Macron and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. The relationship with the EU has gone from being a strategic partnership to China becoming a systemic rival from 2019. Since then, China has become a much more systemic rival, and Xi’s wishes to sell electric cars to Europe were dismissed by von der Leyen, saying that the EU “cannot absorb massive over-production of Chinese industrial goods in its markets”. In other words, a cold shoulder.
Moreover, Xi had to hear about Macron’s darling, Ukraine, and this speech may well have gone in one ear and out the other. In the absence of concrete results – and probably also in the absence of new reflections – the most important thing for Xi in Paris was to show that he is so powerful that no one can overlook him. Since NATO’s bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, China’s economy has grown 16 times. Ignore Xi, sort of?
No, no one does. And if it was hardly important for Xi to make this point to the Europeans, it was important to make this point to the rest of the world. And on Thursday, Xi goes to the EU’s black sheep, Hungary’s Viktor Orban.
