Can Xi Win Back Europe?

Five years after embarking on his last European tour, Chinese President Xi Jinping is set to return to the continent on Sunday with a new mission: damage control.

When Xi last set foot on the continent, European views of Beijing—and the broader geopolitical landscape—looked dramatically different. In 2019, the COVID-19 pandemic had yet to throttle the world. Russia was still years away from launching its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Chinese electric vehicles hadn't yet inundated European markets. And, in a sign of China's economic and geopolitical clout at the time, Italy had just become the first G-7 nation to join the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

European attitudes toward China have soured significantly in the years since, fueled by deepening trade divisions and frustrations over Beijing's expanded economic and military cooperation with Moscow in the wake of its invasion of Ukraine. With Xi's upcoming trip—which includes stops in France, Serbia, and Hungary—the Chinese leader is hoping to mend ties over the Russia-Ukraine war and blunt Europe's push to "de-risk" from his country. 

Xi wants to "manage the damage that has been done to the relationship because of the Chinese position in the Russian war in Ukraine," said Yun Sun, the director of the China program at the Stimson Center, who noted that France, Serbia, and Hungary are the "three countries that are probably the most pro-China" in Europe. 

"China wants to retain the affinity with Europe," she added.

The Chinese leader's visit follows weeks of escalating tensions as European officials have cracked down on suspected espionage and the European Union threatens to unleash new tariffs over Beijing's contentious trade practices. In just the past two weeks, German and British authorities have charged six people suspected of spying for China. Brussels has also adopted an increasingly confrontational trade posture toward China, with a slew of investigations into hefty Chinese subsidies for electric vehicles, wind turbines, and solar panels, as well as Beijing's procurement of medical devices. 

"We like fair competition. What we don't like is when China floods the market with massively subsidized e-cars," European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said last month. "That is what we are fighting against. Competition yes, dumping no. That must be our motto."

With Xi's visit, Beijing is projecting a rosier image. Chinese state media has billed the state visits as opportunities to "open new chapters of solidarity and cooperation" while "injecting fresh impetus into the nation's ties with the European Union." "China-EU relations have shown sound momentum of steady progress, which is in the interest of both sides," Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian declared this week. 

And the timing of each stop is symbolic, too: 2024 marks the 60th anniversary of China and France's diplomatic relations, as well as the 75th anniversary of Beijing's diplomatic ties with Hungary. With Serbia, Xi's visit to Belgrade is expected to coincide with the 25th anniversary of the U.S. bombing of the Chinese Embassy in the city. The bombing, which occurred amid the 1999 NATO bombing of Yugoslavia and which Washington maintains was accidental, killed three Chinese journalists and sparked a diplomatic firestorm between Beijing and Washington.

Yet Beijing's message of solidarity and cooperation may not resonate with European leaders who have grown increasingly wary of the deep economic integration that has historically characterized relations. While Europe has long been split over how to best respond to China, Brussels and many European leaders are increasingly adopting a tougher posture toward Beijing as alarm grows over their gaping trade imbalance and a massive flood of cheap Chinese green technology exports. 

"We recognize what we see as the Chinese playbook," Margrethe Vestager, the European commissioner for competition, told Bloomberg Television last month. "Knowing you have been played teaches you that you need to watch out, to be much more observant and to take better actions."

Xi's last trip to Europe in 2019 included a flashy ceremony to celebrate Italy's new participation in the BRI, a major triumph for the Chinese leader's flagship foreign-policy initiative. Yet Italy turned its back on the BRI last August, dealing a humiliating blow to Beijing's ambitions on the continent and reflecting just how much attitudes have shifted as leaders reassess their ties with China.

"The de-risking genie is out of the bottle," said Grzegorz Stec, head of the Brussels office of the Mercator Institute for China Studies. "But while the general concept has been embraced, discussions are still ongoing regarding what exact policies and what level of intensity should the practice of de-risking entail." 

To weaken that push, analysts said Beijing will likely try to take advantage of the diverging interests within Europe, as well as the divisions between European leaders and Washington, which has adopted a far more hawkish line toward China. One of Xi's aims is "to undermine the kind of united front that the Europeans and the United States were trying to build up, especially when it comes to Russia's war against Ukraine," said Liana Fix, an expert in European politics at the Council on Foreign Relations. 

That strategy is reflected in Chinese state media, which has framed the Biden administration as a troublemaker eager to dismantle an otherwise productive Europe-China relationship. "Will EU pick sides between China and the U.S.?" one op-ed asks. Despite Washington's "instigation and coercion," it reads, "the EU is clear about the importance of maintaining cooperative ties." Pragmatic European countries "have been trying to interact with China based on their own interests," it adds. 

But with the de-risking genie loose, there may be only so much that the Chinese leader can accomplish. 

"The Chinese want to emphasize that de-risking is not good or not constructive for bilateral economic relations," Sun said. "But I doubt that it will be a successful push because the Europeans' position, as of now, is fairly clear, that Europe does have concern about, for example, electric vehicles from China."