PARIS — France-Serbia-Hungary — who doesn’t want to be on this list? It’s an understatement to say that Paris didn’t take kindly to being placed in the same box as Serbia and Hungary, two allies of Russia and clients of China, along this week’s itinerary of the first post-COVID trip to Europe of Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
It’s all the more embarrassing because, after two days of hushed diplomacy in France, the Chinese president is in Belgrade on Wednesday for a highly symbolic anniversary: this week, 25 years ago, on May 7 1999, in the midst of the Kosovo war and NATO intervention, U.S. military planes dropped five bombs on the Chinese embassy in Belgrade. Three Chinese journalists were killed.
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The incident sparked a nationalist fever in China, which has never really gone away. The United States apologized, citing a problem with out-of-date maps. But Chinese public opinion remains convinced that the attack was deliberate — not least because two years later, in 2001, another incident between an American spy plane and a Chinese jet resulted in the death of the Chinese pilot.
Against the backdrop of the new Sino-American Cold War, Xi Jinping is in Belgrade to hammer home the point that the United States is the main threat to world peace.
Ongoing misunderstandings
Xi had come to France to flatter his sense of independence, by implication, from the Americans. His reference in his state-dinner toast to General Charles de Gaulle was the coded way to transmit this message, which was ultimately quite transparent to all.
But Xi Jinping’s logic constantly comes up against a different reality: he is the one supporting Vladimir Putin, providing precious diplomatic cover for the Russian president’s invasion of Ukraine. Seen from Europe, this support blurs the Chinese message, as Europeans see the war in Ukraine as an existential threat, something Beijing has difficulty understanding.
This message will be more easily heard in Serbia, and in the third stage during the visit to Viktor Orban’s Hungary. Both have a pro-Russian bias, and Hungary, a member of the European Union, even represents a permanent refusal front among the 27 European States.
The 17+1 ambivalence
A few years ago, China achieved a breakthrough on the continent by creating the “17+1” format: 17 European countries, inside and outside the European Union, in dialogue with China. Since then, a number of Central European and Baltic countries have pulled out of the dialogue.
Mistrust is the order of the day.
By visiting Serbia and Hungary, two countries that will soon be linked by a railroad built and financed by China, Xi Jinping is showing that he has not given up on cultivating special friendships on the continent, with far greater proximity than with France.
The main European powers are watching these new facilities with suspicion, as they suspect that China is always seeking to divide Europe in order to better rule or influence it.
Mistrust is the order of the day, because you can’t proclaim “unlimited friendship” with Vladimir Putin without consequences in a Europe that feels threatened by him. By visiting Belgrade and Budapest after Paris, Xi Jinping is showing that the message still hasn’t gotten through.
