Editor’s note for Friday, October 2, 2020

My thoughts today:

Europe is becoming disillusioned with China. There’s none of the American bombast when it comes to dealings with Beijing, but the trend is clear. Here are some of the latest signals:

The Council of the European Union published its “Conclusions on external relations” yesterday. There are four points with regards to China:

• That there is a “need to rebalance the economic relationship and achieve reciprocity”;
• That the Council “encourages China to assume greater responsibility in dealing with global challenges”;
• That it has “serious concerns about the human rights situation in China, including developments in Hong Kong and the treatment of people belonging to minorities”;
• That there should be “further coherent efforts to implement” the March 2019 policy document, EU-China: A Strategic Outlook.

Meanwhile, German Chancellor Angela Merkel told a news conference in Brussels that for any investment agreements between the EU and China, “we naturally expect reciprocity… If the Chinese side gives no market access in certain areas, that will naturally mean that access to the European market will also be more restricted.” She also said that “barriers to European companies wanting to invest in China were still too high,” per Reuters.

Nikkei Asian Review says that “detachment from China is now spreading in Eastern Europe, spearheaded by the Czech Republic,” while last year, “Poland, the Czech Republic, Romania and Estonia agreed to cooperate with the U.S. on 5G cybersecurity protection, suggesting that they would follow Washington’s example in imposing restrictions on top Chinese telecommunications equipment maker Huawei Technologies.”  

Our words of the day are the names of the Chinese companies that may be on the verge of rolling out viable COVID-19 vaccines (see today’s top story):

CanSino Biologics (康希诺生物 kāngxīnuò shēngwù)
Sinovac Biotech (科兴生物 kēxìng shēngwù)
Sinopharm (国药 guóyào)

—Jeremy Goldkorn, Editor-in-Chief