The world shook this weekend as deep cracks appeared in the transatlantic alliance during a glitzy security summit in Munich. One guest was ready to capitalise: China.
Top officials from the United States and Europe spent a chaotic weekend trading barbs over values, Ukraine and democracy, with US Vice-President J.D. Vance clashing with a series of German leaders over his courting of the far-right ahead of next week’s federal election.
“The threat that I worry the most about vis-a-vis Europe is not Russia. It’s not China, it’s not any other external actor. And what I worry about is the threat from within,” said Vance, who later met Alice Weidel, the leader of the insurgent Alternative for Germany, which has been branded “extremist” by German authorities, on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference.
Over lunch on Saturday, meanwhile, Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine Keith Kellogg stoked further despair by saying Europe would not be included in peace talks, even as European boots would be expected on the ground in Ukraine. Vance and others also hinted that America’s security guarantee for Europe was in question.
In the margins, Beijing was making hay.
In a diplomatic blitz, Foreign Minister Wang Yi met with Germany Chancellor Olaf Scholz and his conservative opponent Friedrich Merz, Nato Secretary General Mark Rutte, and counterparts from the EU, Germany, Spain, and France. On each occasion, according to foreign ministry readouts, he pitched China as a partner to Europe and a friend of the existing order.
