Chinese and European Leaders Talk Trade, Ukraine at Beijing Summit |
Chinese President Xi Jinping pitched friendlier economic relations (Nikkei) with the European Union (EU) at today’s meeting, the first time senior Chinese and EU officials have gathered in person since 2019. European leaders had planned to raise concerns (FT) with Xi over Chinese policies that are helping Chinese products flood European markets; the EU’s trade deficit with China widened to almost 400 billion euros last year. To compensate, the EU has called (AP) for China to ease access to European exports. EU leaders also planned to urge Xi to use his influence with Russia to end its invasion of Ukraine and ensure Chinese exports to Russia are not being used for the war effort.
Beijing, for its part, has aimed to avoid the same level of trade tensions with Europe as it is experiencing with the United States. Xi told his guests at today’s meeting to avoid “various kinds of interference” in the China-EU economic relationship, understood to refer to a U.S.-led de-risking agenda. Organizers of the summit agreed ahead of time that it would produce no joint statement (Reuters).
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“The times of intense negotiations over days and nights for joint statements seem to be over,” the German Marshall Fund of the United States’ Gunnar Wiegand tells the South China Morning Post. “It shows our relationship is in a period of sober realism.”
“Some of [the EU’s] new geopolitical equipment is simply a belated response to the bullying tactics of the previous U.S. administration (and preparation for a possible future U.S. administration with similar policies). Yet most of it is meant to overcome economic challenges from China and Russia,” CFR expert Matthias Matthijs and Princeton University’s Sophie Meunier write in Foreign Affairs.
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U.S., China Join Pledge to Decarbonize Buildings |
Twenty-seven countries, accounting for around 64 percent of global gross domestic product (GDP), joined a pledge (UNEP) launched by France, Morocco, and the UN Environment Program (UNEP) to work toward near-zero emissions in the buildings sector by 2030. The inaugural Buildings and Climate Global Forum will be held in Paris next March.
Germany announced (Clean Energy Wire) its first climate-related foreign policy strategy, which incorporates a climate approach to its strategies on international trade, foreign aid, and negotiating position on matters such as a potential global carbon pricing system.
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China, Singapore to Establish Thirty-Day Visa-Free Travel |
Senior officials from both countries agreed on the measure (Bloomberg) at a Tianjin meeting that yielded two dozen bilateral agreements, including on measures such as food security and free trade. |
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HRW: Taliban Education Policies Are Harming Boys as Well as Girls |
The Taliban’s discriminatory measures against women and girls’ education in Afghan schools, such as firing female teachers, increasing corporal punishment, and regressing the curriculum, are jeopardizing education for boys as well as girls, Human Rights Watch said in a new report.
Pakistan: Poor air quality in Pakistan’s second-most-populous city of Lahore over the past month has led to (Reuters) at least a 50 percent rise in the number of children seeking medical care, health officials estimated.
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Middle East and North Africa |
UN Chief Invokes Rarely Used Mechanism to Bring Cease-Fire Debate to Security Council |
UN Secretary-General António Guterres invoked Article 99 (Axios) of the UN Charter for his first time, which triggers a debate at the Security Council on matters the Secretary-General believes threaten “international peace and security.” Guterres said the situation in the Gaza Strip has led to “a severe risk of collapse of the humanitarian system” as Israel’s war with Palestinian militant group Hamas continues. Israel’s foreign minister posted (Times of Israel) that Guterres’ action “constitutes support of the Hamas terrorist organization.”
Russia/Saudi Arabia: The two countries, the world’s two biggest oil exporters, called (Reuters) in a joint statement for members of the OPEC+ group of oil-exporting countries to comply with an agreement reached last week on voluntary output cuts. Oil prices dropped last week in spite of the announced production cuts. This timeline traces the influence of oil on U.S. foreign policy. |
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Kenya Sends 1,500 Farm Workers to Israel Amid Agricultural Labor Shortage |
More than ten thousand migrant farmworkers have left Israel (BBC) since Hamas’s October 7 attack, leading Israel to seek farmworkers with African governments. Israel has said they need up to 40,000 farmworkers; Malawi sent 221 people to work on Israeli farms last month.
Seychelles: The Seychelles government declared a state of emergency (CNN) today after a blast at a depot housing explosives injured hundreds of people. Recent heavy rains and flooding have also added to the area’s destruction.
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Erdoğan: U.S. Must Approve Fighter Jet Sale For Turkey to Back Sweden’s NATO Bid |
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan told Turkish media that Turkey would approve (FT) Sweden’s request to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) only once Washington approves the sale of F-16 fighter jets. U.S. President Joe Biden backs the sale, but the Senate Foreign Relations Committee has been reluctant to approve it.
This Backgrounder by CFR’s Kali Robinson details Turkey’s foreign policy ambitions.
U.S./Russia: The U.S. Justice Department announced charges (AP) against four Russian soldiers it accused of torturing a U.S. citizen in Ukraine. It is both the first prosecution against Russian forces for atrocities in in its war against Ukraine, and the first time the department invoked a statute that makes it a crime to torture or inhumanely treat an American during war.
In this article, Hans Corell, Irwin Cotler, David Crane, and CFR expert David J. Scheffer unpack how Russia can be held accountable for alleged criminal aggression in the war against Ukraine.
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Venezuelan Attorney General Orders Arrests of Senior Opposition Leaders |
The attorney general accused (AP) a dozen opposition members of conspiring against the government’s plans to hold a referendum last weekend over the disputed territory of Essequibo, currently controlled by Guyana. They include former legislative leader Juan Guaidó and three campaign staffers of presidential candidate María Corina Machado.
Peru: Authorities freed (Bloomberg) former President Alberto Fujimori from prison yesterday, defying a decision by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights that he should remain incarcerated. He had been jailed since 2005 on a sentence related to the use of death squads.
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Senate Republicans Block Proposed Spending Bill Including War Aid for Israel, Ukraine |
The lawmakers who opposed the bill in a vote yesterday said that tougher restrictions on the U.S. border should be added (FT) to the package. Biden said he was “stunned” by the rejection but would continue to press for aid to both countries. Meanwhile, Republican presidential hopefuls discussed U.S. policy on Gaza and Ukraine in a televised debate last night that did not include former President Donald Trump. While continued financial support for Israel was unanimous (Al Jazeera), support for Ukraine was not.
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