EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell said that it will be difficult for Europe to trust China if it does not try to find a political solution to the Ukrainian crisis, Reuters and Agerpres reported.

The comment was part of a speech Borrell was due to give to a think tank in Beijing on Friday, but he had to cancel his trip to China due to contracting COVID-19, and remarks from the prepared speech were published on the EU’s website.

“It will be extremely difficult, even impossible, for the European Union to maintain trusting relations with China, which I would like to see if China does not contribute to the search for a political solution based on Russia’s withdrawal from the territory of Ukraine,” Borrell said.

“Neutrality in the face of violations of international law does not inspire confidence,” said the European diplomat, adding a call to Chinese President Xi Jinping to talk to his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyi and to China to provide more humanitarian aid to the Ukrainian people.

Xi Jinping has met Russian President Vladimir Putin twice, most recently in March, but has not spoken to Zelensky since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022 in what Moscow calls a “special military operation.”

China said it opposed attacks on civilians and nuclear facilities in a position paper on Ukraine published in February, but refrained from openly criticizing Russia for its actions in Ukraine.

Contradictory statements of Emmanuel Macron

Borrell’s comments after the visit to China of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and French President Emmanuel Macron.

The leader from the Elysee Palace made several statements during the visit that angered allies on NATO’s eastern flank and worried Western offices.

Among other things, he said that Europe should not automatically align itself with the US or China in the event of a conflict over Taiwan.

“The worst thing would be to think that we Europeans should follow the others” on the issue of Taiwan and adapt to the American pace and China’s overreaction,” the French head of state said in an interview on Friday during his visit. to China

“Why should we go at the pace chosen by others? At some point we will have to ask ourselves questions about our interests”, knowing that “we do not want to enter the logic of bloc against bloc”, insisted the French president.

Calling for “strategic autonomy” to become “Europe’s struggle”, Macron pointed to “accelerating unrest between the Sino-American duopoly”, with the risk of “having neither the time nor the means to finance” this “autonomy”. strategic”.

His words were sharply condemned by the Prime Minister of Poland, Mateusz Morawiecki.

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