- cross-posted to:
- world@quokk.au
- cross-posted to:
- world@quokk.au
European leaders headed to Asia this week with a key message: We need to work closer together to preserve the rules-based order against threats from China and Russia.
Kaja Kallas, the European Union’s top diplomat, and French President Emmanuel Macron emphasized the links between Vladimir Putin’s war against Ukraine and Russia’s deepening relationship with China during a range of appearances in Southeast Asia in recent days.
“It is the greatest challenge of our time,” Kallas told an audience at the Shangri-La security conference in Singapore.
[…]
Kallas accused China of enabling Russia’s war machine, saying 80% of dual-use goods used to fight Ukraine come from the world’s second-biggest economy.
[…]
"If you are worried about China, you should be worried about Russia,” Kallas said.
Western officials accuse China of supplying Russia with critical technologies, including drones, while saying that both nations have engaged in cyberattacks, acts of sabotage and dangerous activities related to infrastructure such as deep-sea cables.
Kallas called on European and Asian partners to work together on tackling covert shadow fleets of tankers and to review maritime security laws. North Korea’s direct support of Russia’s war efforts – including missiles, ammunition and troops – has further brought the conflict closer to home on both sides of the world.
"If China doesn’t want NATO being involved in Southeast Asia or in Asia, they should prevent North Korea from engaging on European soil,” Macron said in a keynote address in Singapore on Friday.
Speaking to reporters after a meeting on Thursday of a little-known defense grouping known as the Five Power Defence Arrangements, which brings together the Commonwealth nations of Singapore, Australia, Malaysia, New Zealand and the UK, officials from several member countries acknowledged some common challenges. That included risks against underwater information infrastructure in Europe and Asia.
“It is a complex and new area,” said General Mohd Nizam Jaffar, Malaysia’s chief of defense forces. “But we are looking into it.”
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Nations in the Indo-Pacific and Southeast Asia are caught between the threat of dramatically higher US levies and a surge of cheaper Chinese goods that could cost them manufacturing jobs. Many rely on China economically and the US for defense.
[…]
In an apparent jab at the US and China a day earlier, Macron condemned “revisionist countries” that seek to impose “spheres of coercion.” He called for fresh cooperation between Europe and Asia based on free trade, jointly mitigating risks and autonomous decision-making. In Europe’s case, that means being allied to the US as a matter of choice but not being dependent on it, while wanting to cooperate and compete fairly with China.
“Our shared responsibility is to ensure with others that our countries are not collateral victims of the imbalances linked to the choices made by the superpowers,” the French president said.
[…]
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The best we can hope for is that China prefer cooperation over domination.
Unfortunately there’s a lot of reluctance on cooperation from both sides.But there is no doubt that China will be by far the dominant global power within a decade.
Especially now where Trump is ruining the economy and cooperation of the west.USA, Europe, Canada, Japan, Australia etc could be a balance to China, but Europe or USA definitely can’t do it alone in the long run. So for now it seems like USA is surrendering dominance to China. We can only hope they’ll be more graceful about it than USA has been.
Apart from their nuclear arsenal, Russia isn’t even relevant in this context, neither militarily or economically.I think with regards to the EU China is going for something like an economic cold war. They want to prove the superiority of their system, but unlike Russians have too much strategic sense to go for possible lose/lose scenarios. I wouldn’t count on the US at all they’re fickle at best.
Also don’t underestimate the desire of UNASUR, ASEAN, actually scratch that pretty much the entire southern hemisphere to keep win-win going. A year or two ago there was lots of talk about a “BRICS axis” which Brazil quickly commented with “why the fuck would we want to antagonise the west”. Brazil is out for revenge for that 7-1 but that’s pretty much it. Strategically it’s going to be important to not lose Africa to Chinese bribes. I suggest starting by locking up the French in a closet, specifically their president. Specifically their current one the man is running around with a foot in his mouth.
I don’t see UNASUR or ASEAN as in direct opposition to Europe. I understand if UNASUR countries have problems with USA, but why Europe? Asean have an uneasy relationship with China, so I think they very much favor China being balanced by the west.
I suggest starting by locking up the French
Why?
I don’t see UNASUR or ASEAN as in direct opposition to Europe.
That was my point: They’re not going to look too kindly on rogue actors messing stuff up. Russia initially had some capital with them as they managed to portray themselves as an anti-imperialist force for so long but between Ukrainians simply being themselves and Europe trying to actively shield the rest of the world from the impact of the war (think grain etc, not actually cutting off Russian oil to not raise the world market price etc) only right-wing populists are still on Russia’s side (that includes tankies).
Why?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTXm-2JfnfQ
And if you think “well some of that is reasonable, France provided the states there with security and after the coups, the states are throwing counter-terrorism out of the window”: Back when the deployment started countries there were saying “Argh, France again, you’ll come, shoot a bit, then leave, leaving us just as vulnerable as before”, which is why Germany chimed in, saying more or less “yes that’s what they’re going to do, we’re going to come along and train your forces”. Germany then left together with the French forces, I think without being specifically disinvited, simply because we didn’t fancy having a training mission there while there were no French forces having our rear.
The French just can’t help themselves they’re constantly falling back into an arrogant, colonialist, attitude. The further we keep them away from Françafrique the better. Send, like, Latvia or such to talk with them. Ukraine btw has, or at least had, some special forces down there picking off Wagner together with IIRC Tuareg.
Thanks, I apparently misunderstood regarding UNASUR and ASEAN.
I can see how that would piss off people from Afrika, especialoly former french colonies. Complete lack of “reading the room” as they say.
constantly falling back into an arrogant, colonialist, attitude.
Yes the French are often arrogant for some reason, they also think Napoleon is considered a hero in Europe, despite he was a war monger.
IDK if France was better or worse than other colonial powers, but being a colonial power is wrong to begin with. And France has to acknowledge that before anything else.
I don’t think Europe ever even attempted to repair the dammage we did. But to be fair I don’t really know how that could be done.I don’t think Europe ever even attempted to repair the dammage we did. But to be fair I don’t really know how that could be done.
We do all have different strategies, England went ‘well if a part is white we can keep control’, France went ‘well if a part is poor we can keep control’ and the Netherlands and Belgium went ‘well as long as it doesn’t cost us money we don’t need to be in control’ don’t know about Portugal and Spain but seems eu relationship with Latin America is in a better state than eu relationship with France Afrique.
I don’t get it, I don’t think there’s an effort by Europe to control Africa. Just as even UK isn’t trying to control India anymore.
This has nothing to with poverty or white minorities, or if it’s cheap. African countries are not colonies anymore. They are their own nations, and can make their own alliances.Not by EU institutions, but there has been a lot of effort to control various African countries by European countries. Again I don’t really know about Spain and Portugal, but it is widely known France has continued to militarily back governments it favoured after they gained independence and also had major economic influence through their currency (more here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CFA_franc).
I wasn’t referring to countries with white minorities, I meant England still holds power (Although not very hard power) over former colonies with white majorities such as Canada, Australia and NZ but much less so in former colonies where the original inhabitants have power (such as India and pakistan).
Yes these countries are their own nations now, but it seems not easy to let go. Not just on a government level but also private wealth and public companies still have business related to colonial times.
We are moving in the right directions but if you were to interview people in these former colonies a lot of them will tell you we are not there yet. Not only is the damage not fully repaired (if this is even possible), there is still influence happening. Although less and less, since for example the current Mali government kicked out the French military in favour of Russian soldiers.
Although china russia axis are something to be worried about, right now Im more worried about usa russia axis
I used to think two big ego’s sooner or later start fighting, even if they have been friends a very long time. Trump made me doubt it a little, but looks like it still holds true.
Xi, for all of his faults (and there are many), doesn’t go on about taking Greenland.
What an absurdely weird whataboutism. (Spoiler: Taiwan, India, South China Sea.)
a decent reply, however:
Taiwan: FWIW, the PRC has been rattling that sabre for over 75 years.
India: has nukes. China’s not going to invade it.
South China: you have a point, but again, no talk of taking over 1 million sq of territory.
South China Sea: 3,500,000 square kilometres.
Your other two points are equally out of touch.
Yeah but usa being our ally shouldn’t just go around making threats about how they are gonna forcefully take land that belongs to their ally (btw to all those who disliked my comment, must be nice living in a bubble, thinking usa is our ally)
I do agree on this argument, China never was an ally to India or Taiwan.
