The halls of the venerable five-star Hotel Palácio are filled with photos of guests stretching back nearly a century, mainly European royalty bereft of countries to rule, but also royalty of a different kind: Hubert de Givenchy, Pierre Guerlain. Ian Fleming stayed here during World War II, and so did Dusko Popov, the Yugoslavian double agent said to be the model for James Bond. Scenes from “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service” were filmed here.
The Palácio is as well-groomed as ever, and the staff’s legendary professionalism is undiminished. Still, one instinctively feels that the hotel’s best days are in the past. The question is whether the same holds true for the trans-Atlantic alliance, the topic of the annual Estoril Political Forum that convened in the hotel on Oct. 18.
For the first time since the end of World War II, the U.S. faces a struggle on two fronts. It is the most powerful member of a long-established trans-Atlantic alliance to contain and deter Russia, and also of a gathering alliance to prevent China from dominating the Pacific. What happens in one will affect the other, in no small measure because American power is central to both. Europe’s stance on Pacific issues will have repercussions for trans-Atlantic concerns.
This new reality shapes the difficulties the trans-Atlantic alliance now faces. The U.S. and Europe cannot stand shoulder to shoulder unless they agree on the threats that democracies now confront. But in too many areas, they don’t.
Over strong U.S. objections, Germany completed the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, cementing its dependence on Russia for energy and weakening Ukraine’s beleaguered democracy. As energy prices soar, Vladimir Putin hasn’t hesitated to use this pipeline as a political weapon. Meanwhile, France has joined with Germany to push for a more conciliatory stance toward Russia than the U.S. and most Central and Eastern European countries can accept.
The breach with the U.S. over policies in the Pacific goes even deeper. In a speech to the World Economic Forum in January, German Chancellor Angela Merkel rejected a firm stance toward China, the emerging core of 21st-century American statecraft, endorsed by both U.S. political parties, which agree on little else. “I would very much wish to avoid the building of blocs,” she said. “I don’t think it would do justice to many societies if we were to say this is the United States and over there is China and we are grouping around either the one or the other. This is not my understanding of how things ought to be.”
Speaking to the Atlantic Council a month later, French President Emmanuel Macron called demands for European unity against China “counterproductive.” In case anyone missed the point, Mr. Macron’s finance minister, Bruno Le Maire, recently declared that: “The United States wants to confront China. The European Union wants to engage China.”
If the leaders of Europe’s two most powerful nations are serious about adopting a policy of neutrality in the growing struggle between the U.S. and China, there are bound to be negative consequences for trans-Atlantic relations.
Meanwhile, China is playing a long game to increase its influence throughout Europe. State-owned Chinese firms hold substantial stakes in more than a dozen European ports. One of these firms enjoys operating control of the Greek port of Piraeus until at least 2052 and has invested nearly $1 billion to upgrade the port’s facilities. Is it a coincidence that Greece in 2017 blocked an EU resolution condemning China’s crackdown on pro-democracy dissidents, calling the criticism of China “unconstructive”? Greece’s shipping minister bluntly defended his country’s actions, according to NPR: The country “has the right to make a decision based on its own interests.”
China is also ramping up its diplomatic and military pressure against Taiwan. A successful Chinese effort to retake this thriving democracy by force would undermine American relations throughout East Asia and the Pacific and open the door to China’s domination of the region. This has become a central concern of America’s defense and foreign policy, but it can’t be a matter of indifference for Europe.
In a recent piece on these pages, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, a former secretary-general of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, underscores this new reality. “If America loses its dominance in the Indo-Pacific,” he writes, “it will trigger a shock wave in global power balances that will engulf Europe too.”
Mr. Rasmussen criticizes the myopic mercantilism he sees at work in economic relations between Europe and China, and he warns Europe against the temptation to act as a balancing power between China and the U.S. In the battle for global pre-eminence, he concludes, Europe can’t stay on the sidelines without diminishing America’s commitment to the trans-Atlantic alliance. The sooner Europe’s leaders acknowledge that Mr. Rasmussen is right, the better.
Copyright ©2021 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
from WordPress https://ift.tt/3AXreNg
via IFTTT
No comments:
Post a Comment