The China-EU Investment Deal Is a Mistake
For the sake of an agreement with Beijing, the EU has snubbed the incoming Biden administration and damaged the transatlantic cause.
Wolf Warrior diplomacy via Zoom
Photographer: Pang Xinglei/Xinhua via Getty Images
The European Union is about to announce a breakthrough in a sweeping mutual investment agreement with China. If this happens, Beijing and Brussels — and Berlin, which still holds the rotating EU presidency until Thursday — will declare victory in talks that began in 2013 but had long been bogged down, largely by Chinese stalling. But this deal isn’t a triumph. It’s a mistake.
The sudden Sino-European rapprochement snubs the incoming U.S. administration of Joe Biden, just three weeks before his inauguration. After four years of Trumpist nationalism, Biden was just getting ready to distinguish again between strategic allies like Europe and rivals like China, and to coordinate more closely with the former to better contain the latter.