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PLYmouth, England – President Biden urged European countries and Japan on Saturday to counter China’s growing economic and security clout by offering hundreds of billions of dollars in financing to developing countries as an alternative to relying on Beijing for new roads, railways, ports and communications networks.
It was the first time that the world’s richest countries discussed organizing a direct alternative to China’s Belt and Road Initiative, President Xi Jinping’s campaign to lend and invest abroad, which has now spread throughout Africa, Latin America and Europe itself. But the White House has made no financial commitments, and there is sharp disagreement between the United States and its allies over how to respond to China’s rising power.
Mr. Biden has made challenging a rising China and a disruptive Russia a cornerstone of a foreign policy designed to build democracies around the world as a bulwark against the spread of authoritarianism. Beijing, for its part, has pointed to the United States’ poor response to the pandemic and divisive American policy — particularly the January 6 riots at the Capitol — as signs that democracy is failing.
In scale and ambition, China’s development efforts far exceed the Marshall Plan, the United States’ program to rebuild Europe after World War II. At the Group of Seven summit meeting, discussions on Saturday about how to counter the debate within the West over whether China should be seen as a partner, competitor, adversary or outright security threat.
It is far from clear whether rich democracies will be able to mobilize a comprehensive response.
The plan described by the White House appears to combine existing projects in the United States, Europe and Japan, along with encouraging private financing. A fact sheet distributed to reporters gave it a name, “Building Better for the World,” with its roots in the theme of Mr. Biden’s campaign — an acronym for B3W, a play on China’s Belt and Road Initiative.
It emphasizes the environment, anti-corruption efforts, the free flow of information and financing terms that will allow developing countries to avoid taking on excessive debt. One criticism of the Belt and Road Initiative is that it leaves the countries that sign on to China dependent on China, giving Beijing significant leverage over them.
A sign of growing concern about widespread Chinese surveillance was that the British hosts of this year’s G7 gathering cut all internet and Wi-Fi links around the room where the leaders were meeting, leaving them cut off from the outside world.
Leaders largely agree that China is using its investment strategy to bolster state-owned enterprises and build a network of commercial ports, and through Huawei, communications systems over which it will exercise significant control. But officials exiting the meeting said Germany, Italy and the European Union were clearly concerned about risking their huge trade and investment deals with Beijing or accelerating what has increasingly become the tone of a new Cold War.
Mr. Biden used the meeting to make his argument that the primary struggle in the post-pandemic era would be democracies versus authoritarian regimes.
The first test may be whether he can persuade allies to condemn China’s use of forced labor and, in the words of a senior administration official who briefed reporters, “take concrete action to ensure global supply chains are free from the use of forced labor.” . US officials said it was unclear what kind of language for rejecting goods or investments in such projects would be included in the meeting’s closing statement, which will be issued on Sunday.
But the meeting comes just a day after Secretary of State Anthony J. Blinken, who is traveling here with Mr. Biden, told his Chinese counterpart in a phone call that the United States would actively oppose the “ongoing genocide and ethnic cleansing” of Muslims in China’s far western region of Xinjiang, and the “deterioration of democratic norms” in Hong Kong. European leaders have largely avoided this term.
Divisions over how China is viewed help explain why the West has so far failed to mobilize a coordinated response to the Belt and Road Initiative. A recent study by the Council on Foreign Relations described Washington’s reaction as “scattered,” a mixture of modest congressional amendments to rules governing the Export-Import Bank to compete with Chinese loans in high-tech, and efforts to ban Huawei, China’s telecommunications company. a hero.
The dangers of the US strategy are that dealing with a patchwork of separate programs – and Western insistence on good environmental practices and human rights – may appear less attractive to developing countries than Beijing’s integrated package of financing and new technology.
“Many BRI countries appreciate the speed with which China can move from planning to construction,” said the council’s report, written by a group of China experts and former US officials.
Those countries also appreciate “China’s willingness to build what host countries want rather than telling them what to do, and the ease of dealing with one group of builders, financiers and government officials,” she added.
However, Biden feels an opportunity, as European countries begin to understand the dangers of relying on Chinese supply chains, and have watched China’s influence extend into their own backyards.
Britain, which once pursued the friendliest policies in Europe, has swung firmly behind the US hard line, particularly with regard to Huawei, which the US sees as a security threat. After trying to absorb Huawei, it announced, under Prime Minister Boris Johnson, that it was stripping old Huawei equipment from its networks.
Biden in Europe
updated
June 12, 2021, 7:11am ET
Germany, which has become China’s No. 1 market for Volkswagen and BMW, remains committed to participating and is staunchly resisting a new cold war. It has made decisions about using Huawei and other Chinese-made networking equipment on the road, following threats from Chinese officials to retaliate by imposing a ban on the sale of German luxury cars in China.
Italy became the first G7 member to enroll in the Belt and Road in 2019. Then it had to back down partly under pressure from NATO allies who feared that Italian infrastructure, including its telecommunications network, would rely on Chinese technology.
When China shipped face masks and ventilators to desperate Italy during the Covid-19 outbreak, an Italian official clearly told his European colleagues that the country would remember who its friends were after the pandemic.
France has not joined the Belt and Road Initiative, although it has welcomed Chinese investment in the country and has stopped banning Huawei from its wireless network. Relations with China soured after President Emmanuel Macron criticized Beijing for its lack of transparency about the origins of the coronavirus.
“America will be well served if the European Union does its work together and defines a coherent strategy for China,” said Wolfgang Ischinger, a former German ambassador to the United States. “Its interests are not well served if there is a German strategy for China, a French strategy for China and a British strategy for China.”
This is easier said than done. Britain has moved closer to the United States under pressure from former President Donald J. Trump — not because it has changed its view on strategy or the security risks posed by China more than because it fears, in the wake of Brexit, being cut off from its most important ally. .
Chancellor Angela Merkel, a firm believer in outreach to China, will leave office in a few months. But Germany’s policy may not change much, especially if her successor as leader of the Christian Democratic Party, Armin Laschet, replaces her as chancellor. He is seen as having a close relationship with Ms. Merkel.
France is a different story. Macron faces a formidable challenge from the populist right in next year’s elections. The right-wing leader, Marine Leben, has vowed to stand up to China’s ambitions in the Indo-Pacific region.
“When you have one of these meetings, you will notice liquidity in one country or another,” said Simon Fraser, a former senior government employee in the British Foreign Office. But he added: “There is a lack of cohesion on the European side that needs to be addressed.”
Italy is a good test case for how China has tried to build its influence in Europe. Since joining the Belt and Road Initiative, Rome has signed nearly two dozen deals with Beijing ranging from tax regulations to health requirements on pork exports. But Italy vetoed a 5G deal between Huawei and one of its telecoms companies.
The focus of China’s investment in Europe is a rail network that will connect its Pacific factories to London – a project that Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang once described as a fast lane to Europe. Italy, which has a way station, welcomes investment as a stimulant to its struggling economy.
But Britain’s relations with China entered a state of severe stalemate. The government imposed sanctions over China’s treatment of its Uyghur population and offered residency and a pathway to citizenship for more than 300,000 British overseas passport holders in Hong Kong, after China imposed a strict national security law on the former British colony.
Analysts say China’s human rights record is strengthening European positions across the board. The European Parliament refused to ratify a landmark investment treaty, backed by Germany, due to China’s harsh reaction to sanctions over its treatment of Uyghurs. China has punished 10 politicians from the European Union.
There is also evidence that Mr. Biden is aware that his aggressive language about China – as the biggest adversary in a fateful struggle between democracies and authoritarian regimes – annoys many Europeans. He largely avoided this framework in the days leading up to his European tour, speaking generally of the need to strengthen democracies in a competitive world.
For some analysts, that opens the door to a hopeful scenario in which the United States and Europe turn toward each other, tempering the most extreme aspects of confrontation versus reconciliation in their respective approaches.
“America has become more realistic about China than the hard line, while Europe has become more realistic about the soft line,” said Robin Niblett, director of Chatham House, a think tank in London.
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