TAIPEI, TAIWAN — China initiated a new round of diplomatic outreach to Japan and the European Union this week as Washington prepares for President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration.
A delegation of Japanese lawmakers traveled to Beijing and a Chinese military delegation went to Japan for the first time in five years. Meanwhile, the European Council’s new president held his first phone call with China’s leader, Xi Jinping.
Analysts say China is trying to test the alliance between Washington and its allies through the diplomatic efforts.
“Senior Chinese officials believe the incoming Trump administration will be more hawkish toward China, so Beijing needs to try to take U.S. allies out of Washington’s orbit,” Chen Yuhua, a China studies professor at Akita International University, told VOA in a video interview.
Other experts, however, say the effectiveness of Beijing’s strategy remains unclear.
While China is “improving relations with everyone, they are not willing to fundamentally change their external behavior. We don’t know how long [this trend] will last,” said Stephen Nagy, a professor of politics and international studies at Tokyo’s International Christian University.
Seafood and soldiers
On Monday, lawmakers from Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party, or LDP, and its coalition partner Komeito began a three-day visit to China. During the trip, Japanese lawmakers met with top Chinese leaders, including Premier Li Qiang and Foreign Minister Wang Yi.
The Japanese side urged China to lift import bans on Japanese seafood “at an early date” and ensure the safety of Japanese nationals living in China.
Hiroshi Moriyama, the secretary general of the LDP, said during his keynote speech on Tuesday that China and Japan “need to boost mutual understanding between their peoples and strengthen dialogue at various levels to improve their ties.”
Moriyama also reiterated Tokyo’s concern about rising tensions in the East China Sea and Beijing’s detention of several Japanese nationals under espionage charges.
During his meeting with the Japanese delegation Tuesday, Wang said Japan and China “face important opportunities” to improve and develop bilateral relations.
On Wednesday, Li said Beijing and Tokyo should focus on exploring economic cooperation in areas such as the digital economy and green development, while increasing people-to-people exchanges at the sub-national level.
At the same time lawmakers were visiting Beijing, a Chinese military delegation started a five-day visit to Japan. During the trip, the Chinese delegation was expected to meet their Japanese counterparts and visit some military units, according to a statement from China’s Defense Ministry.
Japanese government spokesperson Yoshimasa Hayashi said during a press conference on Tuesday that the Chinese delegation’s visit helped to resume “exchanges among troops” and “contributes to the peace and stability of the region.”
China’s Defense Ministry said the visit “is expected to strengthen mutual understanding and trust while advancing defense exchanges between the two countries.”
The latest bilateral exchanges between Japan and China follow Japanese Foreign Minister Takeshi Iwaya’s trip to Beijing on Dec. 25, during which Tokyo and Beijing agreed to facilitate Wang’s trip to Japan and hold high-level economic and security dialogues.
Despite Japan and China’s attempts to improve bilateral relations, Nagy said the efforts can’t be sustained. “China thinks Japan and other countries’ growing alignment on issues such as the South China Sea dispute, economic security and resilience policy are against its core interests,” he told VOA by phone.
So “while they can have exchanges with Japan, it doesn’t take away their concerns about these issues,” Nagy said.
Driving a wedge
Apart from mending ties with Japan, China has also been trying to improve relations with the European Union amid rising trade tensions in recent months.
During his first phone call with European Council President Antonio Costa on Tuesday, Xi said there are “no clash of fundamental interests or geopolitical conflicts” between China and the EU, “making them partners that can contribute to each other’s success.”
“China remains confident in the EU and hopes the EU will also prove to be a trustworthy cooperation partner for China,” he said, adding that both sides should “expand mutual openness, consolidate existing cooperation mechanisms and foster new growth points in their cooperation.”
Costa said he had a “constructive” phone call with Xi, during which he highlighted how Russia’s war against Ukraine threatens global peace and agreed with Xi that China and the EU should work together to “tackle global challenges.”
“The EU and China are important trading partners. Our relations need to be balanced and based on a level-playing field,” Costa wrote in a post on the social media platform X.
The call between Xi and Costa comes amid rising trade tensions between China and the EU. Last October, the EU decided to impose tariffs of up to 45.3% on imported Chinese electric vehicles. The move prompted Beijing to impose “temporary anti-dumping measures” on brandy imported from the EU.
Experts say China’s outreach to the EU is part of Beijing’s attempt to weaken the alliance between Washington and Brussels ahead of Trump’s return to office.
“China always has this anxiety that the U.S. and EU would work together to deal with China, so the upcoming regime change in Washington presents an opportunity [for Beijing] to exploit the anxiety that European countries have about the second Trump administration,” Matej Simalcik, executive director of the Central European Institute of Asian Studies, told VOA in an interview in Taipei.
In his view, while China’s approach is unlikely to soften the EU’s tough trade approach against Beijing, it could present challenges to the bloc’s foreign policy agenda by leveraging its influence over certain EU member states.
“There are a lot of policy areas where EU member states have to agree on them unanimously and China could use its friendly relationship with certain member states to veto certain parts of the EU’s foreign policy agenda,” Simalcik said.
While the effectiveness of Beijing’s diplomatic outreach to U.S. allies remains unclear, Chen in Japan said these efforts show China’s foreign policy approach has become “more sophisticated.”
“Compared to their ‘wolf warrior diplomacy’ during the first Trump administration, China’s current diplomatic approach has become more delicate,” he told VOA.
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