Tribune. On March 22, the European Union sanctioned four Chinese officials involved in the persecution of Uighurs, a first since the Tiananmen massacre in 1989. In retaliation, the Chinese regime sanctioned several elected officials and European researchers, including my colleagues Reinhard Bütikofer and Raphaël Glucksmann. What does he blame them for? To criticize the regime. It now intends to repress beyond its borders any freedom of expression.
This escalation is taking place in a context marked by the growing aggressiveness of the authoritarian regimes which rule China, Russia and Turkey. It is fueling a rise in international tensions such as we have not seen since the 1980s. These regimes are helping to destabilize our neighborhood in Syria, Libya, Cyprus, Ukraine and even Nagorno-Karabakh.
They are also working to weaken our democracies by spreading false news, supporting extremist movements, buying our key companies or resorting to cyber attacks. Faced with these authoritarian regimes, we must react now. And these foreign policy issues must become one of the major themes of the 2022 presidential election.
How to make them go back? First, by depending less on them. We need to accelerate the decarbonization of our economies for the climate, of course, but also to depend less on Russia or Saudi Arabia. Investing massively in the thermal renovation of buildings and renewable energies would not only lift tens of millions of Europeans out of energy poverty while creating thousands of businesses and millions of jobs in our territories, it would allow us to immediately end the Nord Stream 2 gas project and not further weaken Ukraine, which is already facing military aggression from its Russian neighbor. What is true for energy is just as true for health, digital technology, industry and defense.
Use our position of strength
Some thought twenty years ago that “soft trade” would be enough to bring China to democratization. This has not happened: the regime has on the contrary hardened since the country’s entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO). On several issues that I am working on as a MEP, such as photovoltaics or trade regulation, I have unfortunately seen how effective the Chinese strategy, combining threats of retaliation and division of Europeans, was.
You have 63.39% of this article to read. The rest is for subscribers only.