Europe's China Strategy Needs Refresh, With Human Rights at Core

Read The Diplomat, Know The Asia-Pacific EU leaders have an opportunity to stop treating repression as a side issue and instead make human rights more central to their engagement with China. At the European Council on June 19, EU leaders gave the European Commission a clear mandate to develop additional trade defense instruments to protect its markets against subsidized imports. At the Franco-German Ministerial Council on July 16-17, for the first time after years of division on the issue, France and Germany jointly identified China as “challenging our economy” and called for the establishment of an EU roadmap to protect European industries against Chinese competition. Austrian Chancellor Christian Stocker summarized it all: “The EU needs to have a strategic reorientation.” Europe’s responses to Beijing’s long-term industrial planning has deepened Europe’s dependence on its trade with China with a focus on matters like subsidies or overcapacity, market distortions, and unfair competition. However, any shift in Europe’s approach to China needs to elevate human rights. The truth is that China’s economy and industry are intertwined with the Chinese government’s human rights abuses. State-imposed forced labor, forced labor transfers of Uyghur workers, the prohibition on independent unions, forced land seizures or coerced relocations have all featured in industries key to China’s relationship with Europe, from electric battery production, to solar and renewable energy supply chains, to technology. Meanwhile, vague criminal offenses, mass surveillance, and pervasive repression allow Chinese authorities not only to silence critics, but also to reshape communities and entire industries with little resistance. European governments have, in effect, turned a blind eye to these human rights violations as some of Europe’s most important industries sought access to Chinese markets and Chinese suppliers. These include strategic sectors such as automotive or critical raw materials needed for electronic products and batteries. Furthermore, Beijing has now made it harder for European institutions and companies to scrutinize and respond to its human rights abuses. Coercive practices that primarily targeted Chinese lawyers, activists, and political opponents are now increasingly targeting foreign companies and their staff through extraterritorial measures. In addition to existing laws restricting cross-border transfer of data and technology by defining vague offenses, Beijing has passed new decrees to prevent foreign companies from pressing for transparency in their supply chains and from identifying risks of forced labor or other abuses linked to Chinese government policies. This includes trying to block foreign companies that try to stop sourcing from Chinese suppliers linked to human rights abuses. The Chinese Communist Party’s coercive logic is no longer contained within China’s borders: it is being externalized to the operating environment of European firms. The European Commission has developed a set of “Trade Defense” tools, such as safeguard measures, anti-dumping, or anti-subsidy duties. But the Commission proposals do not address the deeper, structural, and intertwined nature of the Chinese Communist Party’s authoritarian model with its economic policies. As long as the EU isolates human rights from trade, procurement, industrial policy, and security, it will keep underestimating the nature of the challenge. Instead, European countries should further integrate human rights issues in their economic and foreign policy with China. In particular, they should strengthen the EU regulation banning products made with forced labor by allowing for region-wide bans on products made through state-imposed forced labor in Xinjiang or through labor transfers. By robustly enforcing human rights due diligence legislation, including the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive, EU governments can both push Chinese companies in Europe to respect their obligations and ensure that European companies press their suppliers in China, and elsewhere, to meet robust human rights standards. The EU should further invoke labor protections embedded in International Labor Organization conventions and trade agreements China has signed. It should also press Beijing to allow independent unions and account for rights-abusing-subsidies when qualifying their impact in specific sectors. The bloc should also raise related human rights concerns at each high-level talk on trade and security. And it should sanction Chinese entities implicated in abuses or surveillance and exclude them from EU and member states procurement processes. The Chinese government’s human rights abuses should not be isolated from Europe’s interests. EU leaders have an opportunity to stop treating repression as a side issue and instead make human rights more central to their engagement with China. They should work jointly to harmonize their policies, so that together, they can resist the Chinese government’s retaliation and foster a more human-rights aligned trade ecosystem. Subscribe today and join thousands of diplomats, analysts, policy professionals and business readers who rely on The Diplomat for expert Asia-Pacific coverage. Get unlimited access to in-depth analysis you won't find anywhere else, from South China Sea tensions to ASEAN diplomacy to India-Pakistan relations. More than 5,000 articles a year. Already have an account? Log in. Hélène de Rengervé is a senior advocate on corporate accountability at Human Rights Watch. Maya Wang is deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch. Get briefed on the story of the week, and developing stories to watch across the Asia-Pacific.