Borrell’s meltdown, threats in Denmark and bravery in Lithuania
Hello, and welcome to China Influence Monitor, a weekly newsletter published by CEPA and Coda Story and edited by me, Edward Lucas. We track the westward footprint of China’s influence operations, and their effects on politics, economies, societies and alliances across Central Asia, the Caucasus, Russia and Europe.
JABS AND JIVES
China’s vaccine diplomacy “sweeps the world,” the AP reports. It’s not game-over yet: Dave Lawler of Axios reports that the global Covax initiative will ramp up distribution this month and quickly surpass Russia and China. But for now, in Europe, China is winning the soft-power contest prompted by the pandemic. Let’s round up the usual suspects:
- Hungary’s prime minister Viktor Orbán demonstratively having a Sinopharm jab
- Serbia so flush with Chinese (and Russian) vaccines that it is now able to offer jabs to its neighbors.
- Belarus is getting the Sinopharm vaccine.
- Azerbaijan is grateful to Beijing too.
- Montenegro is now getting Chinese supplies — and plaintively notes that it has not had a single EU dose so far.
- Ukraine has also been left stranded and awaits its Coronavac shipment.
- Poland’s president Andrzej Duda, bruised by the Biden administration’s disapproval of his ill-advised Trumpism, has asked Xi Jinping for help.
- China “immediately” responded to a Czech request for assistance, prompting this sulfurous reminder in Defense Times of past Czech misdeeds.
- Even Belgium is testing a Chinese jab!
Takeaway: EU efforts are a “shitshow”, according to Germany’s finance minister Olaf Scholz.
DIPLOMATIC NEWS