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China-EU investment deal: Joe Biden repeats call for ‘coordinated approach’ to handle Beijing
- US State Department urges ‘strong enforcement/monitoring mechanisms to ensure Beijing lives up to their side of any deal’
- ‘While the EU-China investment deal won’t derail US-China cooperation on China, it will undoubtedly complicate matters,’ says former US trade official
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Robert Delaneyin Washington
US President-elect Joe Biden called for a “coordinated approach” with the European Union against China on Wednesday, shortly after Brussels and Beijing finished negotiations aimed at concluding a landmark investment pact.
“The Biden-Harris administration looks forward to consulting with the EU on a coordinated approach to China’s unfair economic practices and other important challenges,” said a transition team official, who added that further comment about the Comprehensive Agreement on Investment (CAI) would not be appropriate before Biden and Kamala Harris take office on January 20.
With commitments on market access, state subsidies and adherence to global labour standards, the EU accord is meant to address many of the concerns that human rights activists and industry associations have criticised China about. It aims to replace more than two dozen bilateral investment treaties between the alliance’s 27 member states and China, according to EU policy explanations.
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Under the outgoing administration of President Donald Trump, Washington has dealt with these issues unilaterally by launching a trade war against Beijing in 2018 and issuing sanctions against Chinese officials deemed responsible for human rights abuses, particularly in the country’s far western region of Xinjiang.
Reflecting the hard-line stance that the Trump administration has taken, deputy national security adviser Matthew Pottinger criticised the EU-China talks, citing the Chinese government’s detention of Uygurs and other ethnic Muslim groups in Xinjiang, according to the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China.
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