Wang Yi at Munich Security Conference

CGTN Europe

CGTN Europe spoke to Isabel Hilton, Founder of China Dialogue

Transcript

00:00Well let's talk now to Isabel Hilton who's founder of China Dialogue. Good to

00:04see you again Isabel. Welcome back to the program. So lots going on in Munich.

00:08Let's talk about what China's foreign minister has been up to.

00:13He's had a raft of meetings. What is China hoping to get out of this

00:17conference? Well I think what China is manifestly getting out of this

00:22conference is a much improved relationship with Europe. Things have

00:26been pretty frosty pretty much since the pandemic. And the announcement

00:31recently that Lu Xiaoyue who was noted as a wolf warrior ambassador in France

00:37had been appointed to the European Union made people slightly sit back. But Wang

00:42Yi has come in following two senior U.S. officials who were so discourteous so

00:49rude and so ill-informed that frankly it's played greatly to China's benefit

00:56so China has been able to present itself as a reasonable steady sober

01:01power willing to help to hold up you know to to to maintain the the the

01:08multilateral order willing to play a role though as yet undefined in the

01:14conflict in in Ukraine. And frankly looking at the list of officials that

01:20Wang Yi has met you know he's pretty much touched everybody that matters in

01:25those discussions and in the discussions about improving relations

01:30with the European Union. So a big success I would say. Well you mentioned Wang Yi

01:35speaking about Ukraine. Does China do you think have a role to play in

01:39potentially bringing the war in Ukraine to an end? Well China did put forward

01:45what it called a peace plan. It was really a set of bullet points more than

01:50a year ago now. And that initiative needed to take on flesh which it didn't.

01:57But now we have the extraordinary spectacle of Donald Trump negotiating

02:02bilaterally with Vladimir Putin. And so again if we listen to what Wang Yi has

02:07said about the conflict in Ukraine he has said a number of things which which

02:12are pushing back against Donald Trump's Donald Trump's approach. So he has said

02:18as we've heard that all all parties all stakeholders need to be involved in any

02:23negotiations unlike Trump's bilateral approach. He's also said and and this is

02:29a line that China does repeat and is very important for Ukraine that

02:34territorial integrity is a principle that has to be respected. Now if that

02:39were carried through to the conflict in Ukraine that would mean that that

02:44Ukraine gets all the territories that Russia has occupied since 2013. That

02:49would be an extraordinary intervention if that's what China means by this. And

02:53and finally there was the observation which again we've heard before that any

03:00settlement must address the root causes. Now the problem there is agreeing what

03:05the root causes are because of course Russia says the root cause is that this

03:09was a defensive move against against NATO although there is no sign of NATO

03:15aggression. And China has tended to support that whereas obviously Ukraine

03:20sees the root cause and most of Europe sees the root cause as Russian

03:24aggression. So there's a bit of ambiguity there. But other than that I would say

03:29that that what Wang Yi has said about this terrible conflict has been much

03:35more acceptable both to Ukraine and to Europe than the interventions from the

03:40United States. How far China is prepared to take the risk of getting involved we

03:45shall see. But it has enormous influence on Russia and could be a very useful

03:49player. Well the United States a new approach to trade in the shape of

03:54tariffs also something that Wang Yi spoke out against. Do you think we are

03:59heading towards a trade war? What might that look like? Well I think we're

04:03already in a trade war. I mean you know again President Trump has declared trade

04:08war on just about everyone beginning with his closest allies. He tends to say

04:13things and then find that they're either undoable or he backs off or he insists

04:18or you get a different message from other people in his team. So it's not

04:22entirely clear how this will play. But it does seem fairly clear that certainly

04:28vis-a-vis China we are going to see an upping of the existing tariffs. And

04:33well we'll see. China has weapons of its own of course. And finally China may

04:38use its own particular strengths which are a monopoly on the processing of rare

04:45earths and strategic minerals. Now these are vital for US industry. So were China

04:50seriously to restrict those exports to the United States? I don't think it's

04:56going to benefit anybody. Of course the Chinese position is that trade wars

05:00don't benefit anybody. It will mean higher prices all around and less trade.

05:05China needs to export so it will continue to explore third markets

05:10emerging economies. And it will be trying to get Europe to take a slightly

05:15friendlier view of advanced technologies from China. That will slightly depend or

05:22considerably depend on whether China can answer the security concerns that

05:27that several European countries have about advanced technologies. But again

05:31there's scope for discussion there. Isabel great to talk to you as always.

05:34Thank you for coming on the program. That's Isabel Hilton founder of China

05:37Dialogue.

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