Australia’s wine war wins allies; NATO wakes up; a new EU-US alliance.
NATO is waking up to China. The alliance’s foreign ministers held a China summit with counterparts from Australia, New Zealand, Japan and South Korea as well as from Finland, Sweden and the EU’s chief diplomat Joseph Borrell. The secretary-general, Jens Stoltenberg, highlighted the threat: “China is investing massively in new weapons. It is coming closer to us, from the Arctic to Africa. It does not respect fundamental human rights and tries to intimidate other countries.” A report by the alliance’s “reflection group” urged “much more time, political resources, and action” when it comes to Beijing. Covering all possible bases, the Global Times said that NATO was abandoned by and a puppet of the U.S., out of date, ineffective, paranoid and also a troublemaker.
The EU’s much-awaited turn to geopolitics lumbers forwards too. Hard on the heels of a notable new strategic partnership with ASEAN comes an ambitious new proposal for revived transatlantic ties, as the “linchpin of a new global alliance of like-minded partners.” The EU’s top trade official, Sabine Weyand, is proposing a “Transatlantic Trade and Technology Council.” An EU-US effort on digital governance and standard-setting would certainly constrain China’s mixture of high-tech repression and technological innovation. It belatedly fills the gap left when the free-trade Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) foundered five years ago.
Meantime, the growing spat between China and Australia — including a photoshopped tweet showing an Australian soldier as a baby-killer — offers plenty of scope for action. The International Parliamentary Alliance on China, which brings together 200 lawmakers from 19 countries, issued a punchy video where Italian, Japanese, Danish and other politicians pledged to drink wine from embattled Australia, blunting China’s sanctions...And in Washington, D.C. the National Security Council tweeted that it would serve Australian wine at an upcoming function, adding a commendably unbureaucratic #AussieAussieAussieOiOiOi!
WINDS OF CHANGE
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