Last week, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi interacted with US State Secretary Marco Rubio on the occasion of the ASEAN Summit in Kuala Lumpur.
The meeting between two top diplomats is particularly notable as Rubio is officially approved by Beijing.
Before he was tapped by President Donald Trump to become the Secretary of State for US State, Rubio served in the US Senate, where he was a member of the Congress-sex commission on China.
The Commission is accused of monitoring human rights and monitoring the development of law rule in China, and sub -subjects for the annual report to the US President.
As a member of this body, Rubio rapidly criticized the Chinese government for suppressing the democracy movement in Hong Kong and significantly restricting civil rights in the western province of Xinjiang.
Beijing reduced the fact that it was seen as “internal affairs intervention” and the Rubies were placed in the list of sanctions after the US government took punitive measures on Chinese politicians. The current US State Secretary faced an entry ban and freeze of any property in China.
Anaphylaxia
Last Friday, the first face-to-face meeting was held between Rubio and Wang behind the closed doors in Malaysia.
No party told much about this, but the Chinese state media later stated that the talks were “positive, practical and creative.”
At Saturday’s press conference, Wang gave a letter summary of the conclusions made: maintain contact, avoid misunderstandings, manage differences and expand cooperation.
However, he did not mention whether Rubio would remain in the list of Beijing’s sanctions.
There is a “strong will” in both Washington and Beijing to hold a meeting between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping, Rubio said after the talks. No date has been agreed yet.
While the US still remains the only global superpower, the difference with China is compressed.
President Xi wants China to become a “strong, democratic, civilized and harmonious socialist nation” by 2049, which is the centenary of the People’s Republic.
In early 2025, a study published by the Consulting firm Pricewaterhouse Kupers (PWC) estimated that China would overtake the US and become the world’s top economy in the next three decades.
The US-China competition is already shaping the global economy and politics, including trade war, a global weapons race, and rising geopolitical stress.
European Union caught between a rock and a difficult place
The US is now using its economic use to force all economically weaker countries to compromise on trade. On Saturday, Trump announced 30% tariff on all imports from the European Union from 1 August.
According to the DPA news agency, decree will not apply to steel and aluminum. However, they are already subject to high taff. For example, the US applies 25% tariffs on car and car parts imported from the European Union and 50% of duty on steel and aluminum.
European Commission Chairman Ursula von Der Leyen immediately responded, saying that he would take “all necessary steps” to protect the interests of the European Union.
At the same time, he said he is ready to continue efforts to reach an acceptable acceptable agreement with Washington. The European Union’s Trade Commissioner Maros Sephakovic was scheduled to interact with the US Side on Monday.
German businesses have played alarm amid the latest crisis.
Tariff “can harm economic reforms and innovative power”, Wolfgang Undermark said, members of the Executive Board of the Federation of German Industries (BDI).
Faith in international cooperation will affect, he said that Germany is dependent on free trade as China, as an export-oriented nation.
Is a partner or rival of the European Union?
Against this background, the question arises that the European Union can rely on the US, an old ally in the way of globalization, or throws obstacles on the Communist Party -led China, which is now demanding close ties with Europe and Germany despite ideological differences.
What is Trump -led US, like China, is now seen as a “partner, competitive and rival” for Brussels? It is a question asked by China’s expert Paula Oliver Loirete and Miguel Otro-Iglesias in a new paper issued by the Spanish think tank Alkano Royal Institute. Fencing is borrowed from the European Union documents to define its relations with China, with words, so in 2023 the German government’s China strategy.
Two scholars claim, “Unwanted has become a defined factor on the Strategic Station of the European Union in terms of US-China rivalry.”
Berlin faces ‘historical challenges’ with Trump
“For Germany, Trump’s policies and the American China struggle made historical challenges,” said Chinese expert Claudia Weling and Bernhard Bartsch, a Chinese expert at the Berlin Think Tank.
He explains that under Donald Trump, the US administration extended the trans-eleventh relationship, which shook some long and deeply entangled false in Germany. At the same time, Germany cooled its relations with China despite intensive trade and commercial links.
Last week, Germany’s Foreignis Office called a Chinese ambassador to a Chinese warship of Berlin of targeting a laser in a German aircraft on patrol in the Red Sea. The German planian was deployed as part of the European Union -led operation to protect commercial ships from the Hurthi militia exiting Yemen.
But China disputed Germany’s allegations, saying that it was “completely inconsistent with the facts known by the Chinese side”.
The Chinese Defense Ministry said that Chinese frigate said in this question that not in the Red Sea but in the Gulf of Aden at that time.
If Germany manages to separate all differences with China and goes close to Beijing, it will definitely make Washington angry, which still binds European security architecture together. In particular, Russia’s ongoing war against Ukraine has brought the importance of American military presence in Europe to a sharp focus.
“The new government (…) of Germany now faces unprecedented pressure to navigate into the geopolitical world amidst the ongoing polarization of society at home,” underlined Weling and Bartsch.
Leg said, the European Union and the United States have adequate threats from China, Loorant and Otro-Iglecus said.
“America is trying to fight a hegmonic competitor and an existential threat, while the European Union aims to ensure a balanced relationship with a global player,” he argued.
Against this background, experts underlined, “The Difference to reduce the significant dependence in its economic relations with the European Union China prefers to develop de-pisting strategies.”
The German government’s China’s strategy, unveiled in 2023, really emphasized “de-pisting” to reduce dependence on China.
In recent years, many German firms have been seen investing not only in China, but in the US.
However, many actors are now assuming that thesis professional strategies – and, rapidly, for the US – can eventually walk to the interests of the German economy, which is leading to the crisis marked by exporting and reducing job losses, stress vesing and stress. Bartsch.
“Thus, the slogan ‘derivative, but correcting it” can be a challenging mandate for the new German government. “
New start between Brussels and Beijing?
The EU-China summit wants to be in Beijing in late July. Can this be a new beginning for Beijing and Brussels? The possibility of answer depends on Trump.
His administration has already specified Tafs on the European Union and its most important Asian allies, saying that Washington wants to demand 25% levy on imports from Japan and South Korea from 1 August.
The latest American plan for goods from China, however, has not yet been declared. If the trade war between the two increases once again, China may try to use the European Union market to absorb the excess of Chinese production. In turn, the US may redefine goods manufactured in the European Union through direct investment in the form of Chinese products and demand high levy from European Union businesses.
All European Union states should work together to reduce their external descendants, Spanish experts said.
“There are various types of relations and dependencies with both the US and China of various member states, as well as personal interpretations of economic security and strategic autonomy,” he said.
This “inherent asymmetrical” of their trade relations leads to the priorities of foreign policy, Loorte and Otro-Iglesias argued.
Nevertheless, “partnerships are indispensable to the European Union,” he said. “China, among other things, must open its market for European businesses, and it requires concrete tasks and not only celebrities.”
This article was original in German.
