European Council president Charles Michel heads to Beijing on December 1, the latest in a procession of western leaders to seek an audience with Xi Jinping, in a year when the Chinese president has cemented his position as the country’s most powerful leader since Mao Zedong.
Xi met more than 20 heads of government earlier in 2022 at the Beijing Olympics, but most of these did not represent democracies. The visit of Michel, a senior European politician, will focus attention on western attitudes to China’s increasingly assertive geopolitical stance. And it is likely to highlight deep divisions in the west over how to deal with Beijing.
The first divide is transatlantic. It’s true that US president Joe Biden took a more conciliatory tone at his recent meeting with Xi at the G20 summit in Indonesia. But Washington is generally taking a much more hawkish approach to China than the major EU members, especially France and Germany.
