European Union’s [EU] chief diplomat 73-year-old Spanish politician Josep Borrell called on “more robust strategy” for the 27-nation bloc with China, signaling the U.S. has taken a backseat to Beijing. When you consider the decimation of the EU’s economy from the China-originated novel coronavirus AKA SARS CoV-2 or Covid-19, it’s surprising to hear Borrell’s analysis. Members of the Brussels-based EU know that the United Nation’s World Health Organization [WHO], under leadership of 55-year-old Ethiopian Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyseus, failed to alert U.N.-member states of the impending coronavirus global pandemic in Dec. 2019. China’s 67-year-old President Xi Jinping, who put Tedros in the WHO job July 1, 2017, kept China’s epidemic secret until declaring a global pandemic March 11. By that time, China sent millions of infected tourists to Europe, the U.S. and beyond.
Borrell told a gathering of German ambassadors that “analysts have long talked about the end of an American-led system and the arrival of an Asian century,” spewing platitudes in the wake of the U.K.’s long-awaited exit from the EU. Germans in particular were especially shocked to see the U.K. leave the EU, with it its $2,743,686 trillion loss to the EU collective GDP now at $18,705,132 trillion. Borrell knows the U.S. stands a $21,429,453 trillion, far greater than China’s $14,140,163 trillion, yet many economists believe China grossly exaggerates. With the Chinese Communist Party calling the shots, Borrell has no clue what’s really going on in China’s economy, now reeling from the coronvirus global pandemic, shrinking its annual GDP to under 2%. “This is now happening in front of our eyes,” Borrell said, referring to China taking over as the dominant global power.
Borrell’s statements mirror the not-so-hidden frustration with 73-year-old President Donald Trump’s America First foreign policy, demanding NATO countries pay a bigger share of their GDP for defense. Borrell, who’s not an economist, knows that China manipulates its currency, keeps it off global exchanges, fearing it’s value would float upward, making it less competitive to foreign manufacturers. Like the U.S., Germany—and other EU countries—has shifted much of its manufacturing base to China, looking to keep prices down for EU consumers. Like the U.S., EU consumers demand cheap Chinese-made products, consistent with global trends in consumer spending. One thing the global pandemic has taught the U.S. and EU is that China’s Communist regime cannot be trusted for transparency, doing what’s best for China not the rest of the global economy.
Telling German diplomats the EU “should follow our own interests and values and avoid being instrumentalized by one or the other,” Borrell sends mixed messages to EU’s 27-remaining members, knowing that Communist China does not operate by Western standards demanding openness and transparency. Borrell did admit that the EU relations with China were not always based on “trust, transparency and reciprocity,” something Trump’s been talking about for some time renegotiating trade deals. Germany and France, two of the EU’s most influential members, shuttered at the idea of losing the U.K. from the EU, now in the midst of negotiating a mutually beneficial trade deal. “We only have a chance if we deal with China with collective discipline,” looking ahead to the EU-China trade summit. Like the U.S., the EU also has a sizable trade deficit with China, with Beijing buying less European products.
Since Trump backed the U.K.’s June 23, 2016 referendum to leave the EU, Trump’s been on the outs with German Chancellor Angel Merkel. Merkel was once so worried about Trump’s belligerent relations with North Korean Dictator Kim Jong-un in 2017, Merkel inserted herself as a possible mediator. Merkel never got the chance with Trump and Kim arranging their own diplomacy, meeting for a long-awaited summit in Singapore, Malyasia June 12, 2018. From that point, Merkel and the EU were sidelined by Trump, creating the bad blood leaving Borrell pretending that China holds the same clout as the United States. No one in international currency circles thinks for a minute that the Chinese Yuan will replace the almighty greenback anytime soon. As the U.S. boomed under Trump, with the dollar gaining strength against the Euro and British pound, the EU became more envious of the U.S.
Unlike the EU, Trump’s unwilling to kowtow to China, whether on trade or foreign policy, especially intimidating Southeast Asia in the South China sea, where China created shallow military installations in international water. “We need a more robust strategy for China, which also requires better relations with the rest of Democratic Asia,” Borrell said, recognizing the fact that China is anything but Democratic. Unlike the West, China’s Communist government controls every aspect of China’s media, brainwashing its population to believe any lie no matter how outrageous. When China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said March 14 the U.S. military planted the deadly coronavirus in Wuhan in Oct. 2019, the EU go a glaring look at how China disseminates and believes its own lies. With that kind of deception, Borrell knows that China cannot be trusted, unless the EU dictates the terms.
