In the face of China’s consistently intense pressure, the EU needs to end its equivocation and put up a united front.
This opinion piece was written by ICT’s EU Policy Director Vincent Metten and published by Politico on 19 May 2009.
China’s cancellation of its summit with EU leaders in December demonstrated the importance Beijing attaches to the Tibet issue in its relationship with Europe: it pulled out of the summit because France’s President Nicolas Sarkozy, at the time the chair of the EU’s presidency, planned to meet the Dalai Lama, the Tibetans’ exiled leader.
That decision to ‘punish’ the EU as a unit also pointed to the need for a unified EU response and policy towards China. When, on 20 May, EU leaders meet their Chinese counterparts for the first high-level meeting since that aborted summit, Tibet should be a topic on which they show a united front.
Many European governments and parliaments have over the years shown a strong interest in encouraging a dialogue between China and the Dalai Lama on Tibet’s future, and the EU does have a range of policy options at its disposal that it could use to promote this goal.
However, the positions adopted by the EU’s Council of Ministers, the European Commission and the EU’s 27 member states have been characterised by ambiguity and accommodation within an overall approach that assumes that, under the influence of positive engagement, the Chinese government will liberalise its economy and move towards democratisation.
The EU should have influence over China; after all, it has replaced the US as China’s largest trading partner. But, as the European Parliament has noted, Europe’s deepened economic and trade relations with China have translated into neither on the ground progress on human rights nor political liberalisation. The EU’s approach underestimates China’s ability to use its engagement with the EU to its own ends and its determination to block criticism of its policies in Tibet and human rights. Countries within the EU have consistently miscalculated by making concessions to China that are not reciprocated.
The Chinese government has also sought to keep all discussion of Tibet to ‘dialogue’ conducted behind closed doors. Beijing has subverted and politicised international forums where its human-rights record has been challenged. It has, for instance, refused to answer legitimate questions from European governments about the use of lethal force against unarmed protestors in Tibet or the welfare of individual detainees.
The EU should not settle for mere dialogue. Dialogue without adequate benchmarks makes for a mere talking-shop. The EU member states would be more effective if they coupled their private expressions with clear public statements.
As for policy regarding Tibet specifically, the lack of cohesion among European member states and conflicting approaches to specific issues, especially on protocols for meeting with the Dalai Lama, weaken the EU’s leverage. They also leave some countries vulnerable to Chinese threats of reprisal. In December China showed it is willing to act upon its threats; it is now putting intense pressure on Denmark, the Netherlands and France to cancel visits by or block meetings with the Dalai Lama later this month.
Such diplomatic bullying exposes the mismatch of values between China and the EU. The mismatch is, of course, demonstrated most graphically on the ground. Over the past year, the Chinese government has engaged in a comprehensive cover-up of the torture, disappearances and killings that have taken place across Tibet since the series of protests – overwhelmingly peaceful – against Chinese rule last year. It has combined this with a virulent propaganda offensive against the Dalai Lama.
Over the past 50 years, Europe has combined support for the Dalai Lama with political equivocation about Tibet. It must help both sides to remove obstacles and move forward. That requires that it puts up a strong defence against China’s bullying. A strong defence in turn requires unity within the EU, a unity framed by common interests. Equivocation at a time when Tibetans who simply express their views continue to be tortured and killed is a significant historic and moral mis-step. At this week’s summit, the EU needs to show resolve in the face of these gross violations of human rights, and to intensify its promotion of a dialogue between Beijing and the Dalai Lama. Few in the West doubt the Dalai Lama’s commitment to a good-faith dialogue; China itself should be prepared to talk to a man who frames his position in terms of the Chinese constitution and Chinese laws.
(Source: Politico)