Miscellaneous News

FriedButter said:

Hm the choice between a populist crusade or an woke crusade.

I can’t say it’s really any different from the imperialist.

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FairAndUnbiased said:

It is a legitimate escalation because Ukraine itself is fighting those it claims to be separatists, yet supports separatists in China. Any Chinese support of Russia would be legitimate, self defensive and aligned with Ukraine's own declared policy.

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Stop driving Europe away from the United States, dismayed central and eastern European officials fumed on Tuesday as French President Emmanuel Macron’s comments continued to ripple across the Continent.

Macron jolted allies in the EU’s eastern half after a visit to China last week when he cautioned the Continent against getting pulled into a U.S.-China dispute over Taiwan, the self-ruled island Beijing claims as its own, imploring his neighbors to avoid becoming Washington and Beijing’s “vassals.”

The comments rattled those near the EU’s eastern edge, who have historically favored closer ties with the Americans — especially on defense — and pushed for a hasher approach to Beijing.

“Instead of building strategic autonomy from the United States, I propose a strategic partnership with the United States,” Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said Tuesday before flying off to the U.S., of all places, for a three-day visit.

Privately, diplomats were even franker.

“We cannot understand [Macron’s] position on transatlantic relations during these very challenging times,” said one diplomat from an Eastern European country, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to freely express themselves. “We, as the EU, should be united. Unfortunately, this visit and French remarks following it are not helpful.”

The reactions reflect the long-simmering divisions within Europe over how to best defend itself. Macron has long argued for Europe to become more autonomous economically and militarily — a push many in Central and Eastern Europe fear could alienate a valuable U.S. helping keep Russia at bay, even if they support boosting the EU’s ability to act independently.

“In the current world of geopolitical shifts, and especially in the face of Russia’s war against Ukraine, it is obvious that democracies have to work closer together than ever before,” said another senior diplomat from Eastern Europe. “We should be all reminded of the wisdom of the first U.S ambassador to France Benjamin Franklin who rightly remarked that either we stick together or we will be hanged separately.”

Macron, a third senior diplomat from the same region huffed, was freelancing yet again: “It is not the first time that Macron has expressed views that are his own and do not represent the EU’s position.”

Out east, officials lamented that the French leader was simply treating the U.S. and China as if they were essentially the same in a global power play.

The comments, the second diplomat said, were “both ill-timed and inappropriate to put both the United States and China on a par and suggest that the EU should keep strategic distance to both of them.”

A Central European diplomat flatly dismissed Macron’s stance as “pretty outrageous,” while another official from the same region chalked it up to an attempt “to distract from other problems and show that France is bigger than what it is” — a reference to the protests roiling France amid Macron’s pension reforms.

The frustration in Central and Eastern Europe stems in part from a feeling that the French president has never made clear who would replace Washington in Europe — especially if Russia expands its war beyond Ukraine, said Kristi Raik, head of the foreign policy program at the International Centre for Defence and Security, a think tank in Estonia, a country of about 1.3 million people that borders Russia.

It’s an emotional point for Europe’s eastern half, where memories of the Soviet era linger.

“We hear Macron talking about European strategic autonomy, and somehow just being completely silent about the issue, which has become so clear in Ukraine, that actually European security and defense depends very strongly on the U.S.,” Raik said.

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BRUSSELS — European leaders are becoming increasingly favorable toward French President Emmanuel Macron's push for "strategic autonomy" away from the United States, European Council boss Charles Michel said Tuesday.

As controversy swells around Macron's comments that Europe should resist pressure to become "America’s followers," Michel suggested that the French politician’s position was not isolated among EU leaders. While Macron spoke as the French president, his views reflect a growing shift among EU leaders, Charles Michel said.

"There has been a leap forward on strategic autonomy compared to several years ago," Michel told French television show La Faute à l'Europe (which has a partnership with POLITICO) in an interview set to air on Wednesday.

"On the issue of the relationship with the United States, it's clear that there can be nuances and sensitivities around the table of the European Council. Some European leaders wouldn't say things the same way that Emmanuel Macron did ... I think quite a few really think like Emmanuel Macron."

Following a trip last week to China with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, Macron told POLITICO and French newspaper Les Echos that Europe had to limit its dependency on the United States and avoid getting pulled into "crises that are not ours."

"There is indeed a great attachment that remains present — and Emmanuel Macron has said nothing else — for this alliance with the United States. But if this alliance with the United States would suppose that we blindly, systematically follow the position of the United States on all issues, no," Charles Michel said.

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CMP said:

Even legitimate actions have costs. China is handily winning the broader cold "war", so there's no reason to unnecessarily put itself in a more complicated situation.

Agreed. Once those boomers are dead (and gen X needs to be as well, those wretched imperialists) the mantle will be passed on to millennials and eventually gen Z. The world is going to look like a very different place...

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Andy1974 said:

Currently all those smears are baseless, if China goes against her word they all gain legitimacy

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horse said:

Count me as one of those who think this new cold war is entirely fake.

We got to remember the old Cold War, the original cold war.

European heads of state never ever did ever have a line going to Moscow to met whoever was in power.

All these European leaders coming to China on a state visit, seems normal.

That did not happen and would have never happened back then, like what we are seeing today, if this is a replay of the old Cold War.

What US China relations are today, that is more like the old Cold War.

What European China relations are today, that is nothing like the old Cold War.

Hey, got to give kudos to the Americans, for screwing up their diplomacy this royally.

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baykalov said:

"Charles Michel: Europe warming up to Macron’s ‘strategic autonomy’ push away from US"

European Council president says EU cannot ‘blindly, systematically follow’ Washington.

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