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Opinion | An anxious Europe has to grow up and face the reality of a powerful China
- Ties Dams says Europeans have long seen China through the lens of the missionary and the merchant, who focus on either China’s human rights records or huge market. But now, the scaremonger is taking over the narrative of China
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Europe finally woke up to China’s rise last year. President Xi Jinping’s scrapping of term limits turned into a global news event that put a recognisable face on Chinese power to European audiences. The trade war that US President Donald Trump so boisterously declared on China made clear to the European political elite, as well as the general public, that Europe too must engage with the most important power relationship of the century. Xi even launched a charm offensive in Europe, trying to win over hearts, minds and investment capital.
Xi couldn’t have picked a better time to improve China’s brand abroad. Caught between the Trump White House and the Vladimir Putin’s Kremlin, Europe is looking for a great power it can rely on. Xi’s speech at the World Economic Forum in 2017 positioned him as exactly that: a reliable, rational and durable partner in business and governance – the anti-Trump. Back in 2014, Xi had invoked a quote attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte (“China is a sleeping lion. Let her sleep, for when she wakes she will shake the world”) when he told an audience including then French president Francois Hollande: “Today, the lion has woken up. But it is peaceful, pleasant and civilised.”
It is certainly in China’s interests to build a positive image in Europe. The EU is China’s biggest trading partner and a crucial part of its Belt and Road Initiative. The European Union’s relatively open economy has invited a lot of Chinese investment, enabling China to strengthen its foothold in the global infrastructure and hi-tech markets. As Xi claims to champion multilateralism and globalism, Europe is an important friend to keep.
Yet, as more Europeans wake up to the reality of a roaring China, fewer seem to believe that its power is as benign as Xi would like it to be seen.
Fear of China is back in vogue. Fear of China isn’t new, of course. Since as early as the 17th and 18th centuries, when the trading ships of the Dutch East India Company arrived in Taiwan and Guangzhou, Sinophobia has been promulgated in Europe.
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