Jean-François Boittin is a former French diplomat, trade expert, and now consultant, and it was he who led off the discussion at GBD'a event last week (April 23) on EU-China trade. In a sense, it is a little unfair of us to highlight this one, almost offhand remark as today's featured quote. There was nothing offhand about Mr. Boittin's presentation. It was rich, insightful, and included a number of shared EU and U.S. concerns about China. You will want to listen to the full recording or read the transcript of his remarks, both of which are available on the GBD website. (Please see the links below.) On the other hand, the differences too are important.
At the outset, Mr. Boittin explained that he would be putting forward the views of the French business community and, more specifically, the views of two of France's leading business associations, AFEP, which is analogous to the Business Roundtable in the United States, he said, and MEDEF, which is more like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. "In many ways," he said, "the views of these [French] companies are pretty close to the ones that you can hear around here in DC, expressed by organizations, companies, and so on."
But there are differences in perspective, and he listed four.
First, on Economics and Trade, the views of French companies towards China are "more balanced and somewhat more positive" than those heard in the United States, Mr. Boittin said. He cited the example of L'Oréal. It is the world's largest cosmetics company, and for some of its products, China is its best market. So, Mr. Boittin said:
They see China as a land of opportunity. And I don't think they face particular difficulties, including in terms of IP.
Second was the Geostrategic Perspective. Here is a more fulsome version of today's featured quote:
The second difference, obviously, is that the stakes are different in Europe and in the U.S. in terms of geostrategic perspective. It is pretty clear that the U.S. is now in this so-called Thucydides Trap, wants to remain the unipolar actor in the world for as long as possible, and that this position is threatened, or seen as being threatened, by the rise of China.
That certainly brings memories for us, but that is memories from the 19th Century. We've been there, done that, and it's not our problem anymore.
Third, Distrust of China. Mr. Boittin said there was some distrust of China in France but not as much as there is in the United States, where the level of that distrust has been growing. His comments suggested that France may take a calmer approach to China in some areas because it is more skeptical of government's, any government's, ability to force economic outcomes. Discussing the Chinese government program known as "Made in China 2025," Mr. Boittin said:
If any government was able to bring any results that they wish in the economic front, there would still be a pretty powerful computer industry in France, and there is not.
Fourth, China as Europe's Geo-Political Partner. Mr. Boittin was explicit about this. "In several areas," he said, "China is for the European Union, a partner." The two examples he offered were big ones, namely, the Iran nuclear deal and the Paris Agreement on Climate Change.
With respect to Iran, Mr. Boittin said, "We do believe that the commitments that were made under the JCPOA [Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action] have been fully enforced by the country and see no reason to sanction it under that agreement."
On the Paris Agreement, he said, "We know we won't be able to enforce that agreement without the help of China. And here [China] is a very important partner for the EU."
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Having discussed those points of difference in the EU and U.S. approaches to China, Mr. Boittin turned to a series of issues where the U.S. and Europe are more often on the same page (or similar pages). As he put it,
Despite these differences in perspectives, there is a broad convergence [with] the United States on the challenge that China presents on an economic point of view. And here is, in broad terms, the French business community view.
We are not going to list all of the points that followed. They include such familiar topics as the goal of getting China to join the WTO Government Procurement Code on terms that offer meaningful opportunities to her trading partners, curbing China's industrial subsidies, and negotiating an investment agreement, with, among other things, protections against forced transfers of technology.
As we listened to Mr. Bottin, his emphasis seemed more on what the European Union could do for itself vis-à-vis China, such as improving its trade defense mechanism, and less on what it might do cooperatively with the United States. That said, he did talk about the work that is being done by the EU, Japan, and the U.S., and he made this notable reference to the current trade talks between the U.S. and China:
The rules, if any, that could emerge from the current negotiations between the U.S. and China should be reviewed by the WTO and multilateralized whenever possible.
We should also note that some of the issues Mr. Boittin discussed affect the EU directly in ways that get little attention in the United States. One that comes to mind is China-CEEC (or 17+1, previously, 16+1). Here is the start of the Wikipedia entry on this exercise:
Cooperation between China and Central and Eastern European Countries (China-CEE, China-CEEC, also 17+1) is a Chinese government's (Ministry of Foreign Affairs)[1] initiative to promote business and investment relations between China and 17 countries of CEE (CEEC) - Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia and Slovenia.
As it happens, this group had just held its 8th annual summit about a week before Mr. Boittin spoke at GBD on April 23. That was in Dubrovnik, Croatia, from April 11 to 13. After noting that the grouping includes 11 members of the EU, Mr. Boittin said:
We would love to see a strong monitoring of the implementation of EU rules in these eleven countries, be it in terms of government procurement, export financing from China and investments coming from China. We also think that the EU should develop a program of connectivity with the central and European countries that are members of the Union. It would be a paradox that these former vassals of the Soviet Union could become, if not political, at least economic vassals of China, and we should strive to avoid that and also give the political benefit of initiatives that could be put in place by Brussels in that field of connectivity.
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