Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Europe in May, 2024 “amid concerns in Europe over Chinese support for Russia’s war in Ukraine and European markets being flooded with cheap Chinese electric vehicles.”[1] Although these matters were at the time properly matters for the E.U. rather than its states, Xi oriented his visit to the state level, and in particular to states including France and Hungary that had “special bilateral relationships” with China.[2] In other words, the Chinese leader sought to exploit the E.U.’s vulnerability wherein state governments have sufficient sovereignty to undermine the federal level. I contend that the state leaders should have refused to meet with Xi, redirecting him to meet with federal officials.
There were indeed “growing suspicions that China” was “seeking to take advantage of divisions in Europe,” which could weaken the E.U. even in its competencies (i.e., enumerated powers).[3] According to Bertram Lang, a research associate at Goethe University, China had “gradually divided Europe into two groups, ‘those friendly and unfriendly to China.’”[4] Accordingly, Xi began his trip in France to speak with that state’s president, Emmanuel Macron, even though discussions on trade imbalances with the E.U. should have taken place with E.U. officials. “Macron sought to demonstrate European unity by including European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen,” as if the E.U. Commission were a guest or third party on the E.U.’s trade.[v] In other words, Macron’s accommodation could hardly count as deference.
It is not as if the E.U. were incompetent in one of its own competencies. Von der Leyen “took direct aim at what she called China’s ‘market distortion practices’ with massive subsidies for electric vehicle and steel industries.”[6] In fact, the Commission announced that “it would launch anti-subsidy probes into Chinese electronic vehicles and solar panels to determine whether to impose punitive tariffs on them.”[7] Neither Macron nor any other official at the state level pertained to the probe, and yet Macron agreed to meet with Xi.
The undermining of European unity and the E.U. itself by state officials agreeing to play into the divisive tactics of foreign governments is a good argument for E.U. institutions having the authority to limit the involvement of the state governments in foreign policy as concerns E.U. matters, or competencies. Especially as the E.U. was at the time looking at enlargement sometime in the future, the vulnerability of too much state power in federal matters, including the need for unanimity, was something that the E.U. strongly needed to address before enlargement. That Xi was able to exploit the weakness only adds to need to seek a more balanced dual sovereignty in the E.U. It runs against human nature to rely on the deference of state leaders to E.U. officials on federal matters when foreign leaders lure the limelight in front of the state politicians. Therefore, I contend that the E.U. Commission’s president should have had the power to redirect Xi from Macron and other state leaders on E.U. trade.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid.
