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Reinhard Bütikofer is a German politician who has been a member of the European Parliament (MEP) since 2009. After engaging in radical politics as a student at Heidelberg University, he joined the German Green Party in 1984, going on to become its co-president from 2002–2008. Now in his third term as an MEP, Bütikofer serves as a member of the parliament’s foreign relations committee and chair of its China delegation.

Q: In your role as chair of the European Parliament’s delegation on China, you were placed under sanctions earlier this year following the EU’s own imposition of sanctions against Chinese officials who were alleged to be involved in the government’s policy towards the Uighurs in Xinjiang. From a personal perspective, can you tell us how those sanctions have affected you so far?

A: I would first want to point out the difference between the sanctions that had been imposed by the European side and the counter sanctions that China decided upon. We focused our sanctions very narrowly on four individuals and one entity that are without any doubt complicit in the human rights atrocities against the Uighurs in Xinjiang. China, on the other hand, targeted 10 individuals, most of whom are members of different parliaments, including people from all the major democratic groups in the European Parliament and a number of our entities. This represents a very aggressive escalation. 

For example, they targeted without any obvious reason the very prestigious MERICS think tank in Berlin, the most important think tank on China in Europe, probably because they don’t like critical research. Among the members of the European Parliament, they selected people that had been outspoken on human rights, Hong Kong, Xinjiang, Taiwan or other contentious issues. Practically, they sanctioned free speech. By going after the chair of the China delegation, and the whole human rights sub-committee of the European Parliament, Beijing is basically saying ‘We’re not going to engage unless you let us set the terms of the engagement.’ China claims that they should unilaterally draw the limits of free speech as a precondition of engaging, and that is of course not acceptable.

Since I was sanctioned, I have seen a lot of solidarity from colleagues from all political backgrounds. In practical terms, I am prevented from travelling to China, including Hong Kong and Macau. The ban also includes my family members.

Interestingly, the Chinese side has been ambivalent as to whether they allow their own think tankers or academics to join panels where I am a participant. I see this as a signal that they may be deliberating over how to lower the tensions as it has dawned on them that they have shot themselves in the foot.

Had you travelled to China much in the past and do you expect to travel there again?

I have travelled quite a few times to China. I first visited in 1974, and my last visit was in 2019 as part of the German-Chinese Dialogue Forum, which is kind of a Track 2 format between German and Chinese interlocutors based on an agreement between the two governments. I do hope I will be able to travel to China again in the future. I do have an affection for the country, the people, the culture — but not that much for the Communist party.

Do you think the EU should escalate its sanctions in response to China’s actions? 

I’m not an advocate of playing escalation dominance games. We as the EU made our point: We’re not going to pursue our relations by ignoring human rights atrocities, particularly the oppression of the Uighurs in Xinjiang. That position won’t change.

But the EU should also not shy away from using its human rights sanctions mechanism where necessary. Hong Kong is a case in point with Beijing violating all the promises they made to the citizens of Hong Kong and the international community. They have, for instance, forced the Hong Kong Trade Union Council to dissolve because of its cooperation with the International Trade Union Council. The European Parliament has called for sanctions against [Hong Kong chief executive] Carrie Lam and others.

By the way, the Chinese sanctions resulted in a decision of the European Parliament, with a very large majority, that we would freeze the investment agreement that had been negotiated between the EU and China [the Comprehensive Agreement on Investment]. It’s very clear that this agreement is not going to move one inch without China retracting its sanctions.

But ultimately, both on Xinjiang and Hong Kong and other areas where there are concerns about human rights abuses, it’s the leadership in Beijing that’s responsible — it’s Xi Jinping. Shouldn’t the EU’s sanctions be applied to those leaders rather than those individuals that it has targeted so far?

In some cases we impose sanctions with the intent of directly changing the other side’s behavior. In other cases, we go for sanctions because we want to signal where our red lines are. There is no one-size-fits-all. I would say that the sanctions we imposed were of the second type. 

Nobody in Brussels harbors any illusions that we will fundamentally change the behavior of the authoritarian and increasingly totalitarian leadership in Beijing, just because we don’t approve of it. But we want to change the calculus according to which they interact with the international community. At the same time, we’re not interested in the maximum escalation. We are ready to keep dialogue open, to talk to them. I would even say: In a way, our sanctions are a method of talking, whereas their sanctions are an effort to stymie conversations.

Taking a step back, how do you assess the state of relations between the European Union and China more generally?

The relations have been going south over the last couple of years. That is apparent in the polling that we have. With very few exceptions, all around Europe, the public now has a much more negative view of the People’s Republic of China than before. Ten years ago, the numbers were well in the positive in Germany, for instance, and now they are around two-thirds negative. And it’s similar in other countries.

The interesting second element is that the mood is also changing in the business community. In January 2019 the Federation of German Industries came out with a paper that was much more critical than anything you would have heard from the German business community before. That has been very influential well beyond German borders. A year later, in January 2020, BusinessEurope, the most important business lobby in Brussels, followed up with their own strategy that was also highly critical; and other industry associations have also moved in the same direction.

There are, of course, a number of multinational companies, like Volkswagen, that still claim they believe in the logic of win-win relationships with China. They are in a difficult position because they have put too many eggs in that one Chinese basket. If you look at the wider picture, though, the Mittelstand — Germany’s small and medium-sized enterprises — display a different, much more critical mood. They are worried about recent legislation in China that they see as hampering their access. This change of sentiment represents a fundamental shift, not just a temporary detour.

Looking at the government dimension: It’s very instructive to look at how governments around Europe have dealt with the question of whether Huawei should be allowed to participate in the rollout of 5G networks. In the beginning there was a great deal of blue-eyed enthusiasm, but that has changed. And not just because the U.S. admonished us to be careful, but because of our own interests. In Germany, after a drawn out debate in which the chancellery tried to push Huawei’s cards, it ended up with a victory for the national security crowd over the ‘Wandel Durch Handel [change through trade]’ crowd. And it happened with support from the SPD, Liberals, Greens, plus a majority of the Conservatives.

The incoming German government, will be made up from a coalition between three parties that have been quite critical of China in their electoral platforms. That will resolve in an approach different from that of the outgoing government. 

Do you think there is such a thing as a coherent policy towards China emerging in Europe? Germany under Anglea Merkel has been more about the win-win idea, while you see countries like Greece that want to attract investment from China. At the same time countries like Lithuania have been more proactive in doing things that are contrary to China’s wishes.

I would argue there is more coherence in Europe’s China policy today than immediately meets the eye. When you look at the work that has been done in the EU on trade defense instruments, you might be surprised. In 2016, the European Commission still had the intention of granting China ‘market economy’ status, and with regard to the phasing out of China’s accession protocol to the WTO, they did not intend to create a special anti-dumping mechanism to deal with China.

That position was overturned that very year: We came up with a new anti-dumping mechanism. Then there’s been the investment screening mechanism that came into force in October 2020. 

We are presently engaged in work on the international procurement instrument, which was originally proposed by the Commission ten years ago and had been blocked three times by the German chancellery. It is now moving forward to create more reciprocity in procurement markets. The commission is working on an instrument against subsidies that are illegal under WTO rules, and we’re working on an anti-coercion instrument. We’re working on a ban on the importation of products of forced labor and a human rights due diligence mechanism. In the last year, the EU has put in place its own global human rights sanctions mechanism, a kind of European Magnitsky Act. All of that can only move forward because there is substantial support from the member states. The European Commission and the European Parliament alone could not do that. There are still some countries that are outliers, but I do see significant movement in the right direction.

That is not necessarily echoed with regard to more “political” issues. We have found it hard to make common cause with regard to Hong Kong or China’s behavior in the South China Sea. And that is partly due to the overly reluctant position of the German government. I would say that Berlin’s selfish, ‘Germany first’ approach has created major problems there.

With regard to the 17+1 format [a grouping of 17 Central and Eastern European countries with China]: That was originally much feared around Brussels because it was seen as a Chinese effort to push a divide-and-conquer approach towards Eastern and South Eastern European nations. That is not how it has developed. Not only did Lithuania leave, which was quite a courageous step, but other countries, in particular EU member countries, have signaled how unhappy they are with the role that China has assigned to them. There is increasing reluctance to engage with what is now the 16+1 grouping, so this has not turned out to be as divisive as once feared. 

On many aspects of China policy, the European parliament is playing a leading role. We frequently are the front runners or path finders for new approaches to China policy. Before the end of the month we will adopt a report on EU-Taiwan relations, which will be the first standalone report on Taiwan that the parliament has ever done. I predict it will be adopted with more than 550 votes out of 705. The European Parliament just decided to send its first official delegation to Taiwan. There is a great deal of unity on that between political groups. And that is having an impact well beyond the immediate reach of the European Parliament. Obviously we cannot pass mandatory resolutions on foreign policy, but shaping public opinion is also very valuable.

Is the time coming when the European Union will need to make a clearer declaration of its position on Taiwan? Put bluntly, if China ever made a move to take over Taiwan, what do you think the reaction in Europe would be?

Our current discussion is not nearly where that question would put us. We are still discussing efforts to avoid such an escalation. We believe in a conservative approach to cross-Strait relations. We call it the European ‘One China’ policy, which is not tantamount to the Chinese ‘One China’ principle. We say that the realities across the Taiwan Strait shouldn’t be changed unilaterally or against the will of the people in Taiwan, and only peacefully. 

As China undermines stability in the Taiwan Strait, acting very aggressively in so many dimensions, we think it is our obligation to show backing for Taiwan’s democracy. We will not support any move towards independence: I strongly believe that would be completely mistaken, but stabilizing the status quo is what we aim for. And we want to do that by, for instance, convincing the Commission and member states to return to the goal of negotiating an investment agreement with Taiwan, which had been on the EU agenda since 2015. There is a lot of support for that in the Parliament. 

We want to enhance political and cultural relations with Taiwan in different ways. We want to support Taiwan’s meaningful participation in international organizations, like the International Civil Aviation Organization, or Interpol, or the UNFCCC, or the WHO. 

By strengthening our relationships with Taiwan we intend to impress on the rulers in Beijing one core message: Taiwan does not stand alone, and you must make a very careful calculation about what you’re going to do. 

I read about the recent speech by Xi Jinping mentioning peaceful reunification. I don’t think anyone believes that, not even in China, because the strategy that had been devised by Deng Xiaoping of ‘One Country, Two Systems’ has gone down the drain with Xi’s crackdown on Hong Kong. This has been closely watched from Taiwan, where almost nobody believes in peaceful reunification anymore. I would say that Xi has one very serious choice to make — whether he wants to follow the advice of Deng Xiaoping and pursue a policy of  historic patience, or whether he wants to go to war. We want to help with convincing Chinese leaders that patience would be the better option for them, too.

In recent times we have seen new groupings and alliances emerging. For example, the recent AUKUS deal, and the emergence of the Quad. Should the EU be doing more to join these sorts of new groupings in order to contain China, or should it plow its own furrow?

I cannot resist remarking that this question is loaded with a certain irony. To raise AUKUS and then ask whether the EU should be more willing to join new groupings makes me, well, chuckle a little!

It is not difficult to understand why Australia is interested in AUKUS, and also the position of the United States has its logic. But the way in which this has been handled has been doing a lot of damage to a wider effort of bringing like-minded countries together.

If anyone listened to the European Parliament’s last debate about the future of EU-U.S. relations, they could have heard grave concerns voiced from all sides. On the other hand, HRVP Josep Borrell [who is in charge of the EU’s external relations] made a proposal during the last months of the Trump administration which was picked up by the Biden people, namely that we should organize a transatlantic dialogue on China. Our governments should understand that democracies must have each other’s backs when a country is put under pressure from China. I would have wanted to hear more explicit language out of Berlin and other European capitals in showing solidarity with Australia.

The bottom line of our strategy is not to build an anti-China alliance. That would be too defensive. We want to build an alliance based on our vision and our values, by collaborating with others that are like-minded, and by offering strategic solidarity in addressing shared global challenges. 

We want to strengthen multilateralism not only in trade but also in other dimensions, to avoid being pushed into a corner where the world would be controlled by a bipolar antagonism. Even though there is no question that there will be a certain level of hegemonic competition between the U.S. and China, it is certainly in our interests to make other voices heard too. This is not just in the interests of the EU, but also of other countries, those in ASEAN for example, or all of Africa.

Our ambition is to create a positive agenda to compete with Xi Jinping’s authoritarian vision of global government. Climate responsibility, international solidarity and justice and many other dimensions should be included. In that context, it will be necessary to create a global phalanx of democracies, to support other countries that could be plowed under by Chinese aggression. It’s about a positive perspective and not about an anti-China position. 

Proponents of the CAI [The EU-China Comprehensive Agreement on Investments] would argue that such agreements are the way to promote better practice in China on labor relations, for example, or market access. Do you see any value in those sorts of arguments any more?

I’ve been a strong critic of the CAI. It was a slap in the face of the incoming Biden administration, while some European leaders rejoiced that it demonstrated the EU’s so-called strategic autonomy. I think that’s nonsense. We don’t need the go-ahead from Washington to develop our own trade deals, obviously, but it would be a good practice among partners and allies not to proceed unilaterally. To drive a wedge between the EU and United States was what Xi Jinping had in mind when he pushed for [the CAI deal]. For that geopolitical reason it was a mistake to conclude the CAI hastily.

In addition, there is a lot of substantive criticism of CAI. I do not think it is a good deal and when you talk to business leaders they are lukewarm in their assessment at best. The deal gives no protection against the kind of coercion that companies like H&M or Adidas or Nike have experienced recently. It gives no protection against China’s so-called anti-sanctions legislation, which allows Chinese entities to sue international investors in Chinese courts for adhering to sanctions regimes in other markets like, let’s say, the United States. A European investor that adheres to the Uighur-specific sanctions mechanism in the U.S. might be sued for damages which could end up with de facto expropriation.

Then we have to take note of new Chinese rules regarding data management in China. All the data generated in the country must be stored there and can be exported only with the explicit consent of the government. An agreement that doesn’t deal with these challenges is not a good deal.

When you look at market access, which is probably the strongest part of the deal, even that is questionable and comes with many strings attached. I have just mandated a study that looks at market access provisions in detail and shows how many problems there are and how unconvincing that story is. 

Finally, on labor relations. We have insisted as a European parliament that pertinent ILO conventions, namely those against forced labor and those that protect the right to form unions and to collective bargaining should be ratified by China. In the CAI, China only promises hot air.

The deal doesn’t foster green investment in any particular way. Neither would the CAI provide a halfway level playing field. Maybe it could offer some benefits to a couple of sectors like automotive. But overall China did not make many of the concessions we have long sought. I think on its own merits the CAI is not a big deal and therefore it does not merit risking a rupture between the U.S. and the EU.

Do you think cooperation on green issues can be segregated from other points of tension in the relationship between China and the EU?

That mostly depends on the Chinese side. We have signaled that we want to cooperate with China on climate policy, as has the United States. John Kerry has gone out of his way to make that well understood. There is a lot of interest on our side for China to develop its system of carbon pricing. Their emissions trading system is in a very early stage and not very effective. It would be great to make progress together, also on a green taxonomy that indicates which kinds of investment can be considered helpful.

The unfortunate reality is, however, that even though China is indispensable, they are not yet a climate partner. Look at the coal policies they have been pursuing so far and are continuing under the 14th Five Year Plan. That is certainly not going in the right direction. 

A policy that prioritizes climate but ignores social concerns and human rights makes no sense and is not sustainable… We are really eager to cooperate with [China] but not at the cost of allowing them to dictate the terms of the cooperation. 

On top of that, China has over the last few months indicated that it wants to turn climate cooperation into leverage on other issues, basically arguing that they’re not going to cooperate on climate unless we allow their human rights catastrophe to go unnoticed. That’s certainly not acceptable.

A policy that prioritizes climate but ignores social concerns and human rights makes no sense and is not sustainable. That’s not going to work. We are really eager to cooperate with them but not at the cost of allowing them to dictate the terms of the cooperation. We should also refuse such a blackmail because China fully understands that they need to get active with regard to climate policy for their own national interest. They know full well that China is one of the countries that would be harmed most from runaway climate change. I would say that we should keep the offer open, we should not wait for China to move, we should put pressure on China by cooperating with all other partners. By showing that we’re willing to lead the world, we will increase the pressure on China to keep moving. I don’t think that by not saying the words ‘human rights’ they will emit one ton less of CO2.

You commented at the start that China is moving towards a totalitarian system. Do you think there is any hope of better relations between the EU, the West and China as long as Xi Jinping remains in power?

Yes, there is hope. The behavior of the Chinese leadership is motivated, among other factors, by their strong perception that the U.S. and the EU are declining. Beijing commented about January 6th with a lot of glee. They are happy to point out all the weaknesses that our systems display. They strongly believe their own propaganda that China is invincible and its rise is inexorable. For all these reasons, they are willing to play an ever more aggressive game instead of sticking to agreed rules. Why stick to UNCLOS, to ICCPR, or honor the Sino-British Joint Declaration, or WTO obligations when they feel the power to ignore all that, and we fail to push back successfully.

I believe that a successful China policy and a successful global policy starts with getting our own houses in order. As Abraham Lincoln famously said, quoting Scripture, ‘A house divided will not stand.’ The Chinese believe that our houses are divided so much that we will not stand. I think we have to prove that we can do better than that. That could induce more realism into the political decision making of the Chinese leaders.

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