Word: europeanate
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...Europe could certainly benefit from better relations with Beijing, which has been dismissive of E.U. diplomatic requests and disdainful of European attempts to be more of a global leader in recent years. In 2008, China canceled a summit with E.U. leaders after French President Nicolas Sarkozy met with the exiled Tibetan leader, the Dalai Lama. Then, last December, China executed a British citizen for drug-smuggling - the first European to be executed in China in 50 years - despite condemnations from the E.U. and pleas from supporters that he be spared because of his mental illness. And at last year...
...tide is now turning in Europe. Charles Grant, director of the London-based Centre for European Reform, published a paper last month arguing that Europeans need to agree on a single message in their dealings with China so that Beijing can't play a game of divide and conquer. At the same time, he said, the E.U. should "abandon the fiction of a 'strategic partnership,'" which cannot be meaningful with such divergent value systems, and focus on a limited number of issues on which China and the E.U. can find agreement...
...Many E.U. countries are worried about China's increasingly threatening behavior toward Taiwan and are reluctant to sanction an arms buildup that would further isolate the island. France, for one, had called for the embargo to be lifted in 2004, but now says it should stay in place. The European Parliament is also opposed to ending the ban so long as Beijing continues to sell arms to countries like Zimbabwe and Sudan, whose governments the West accuses of committing or supporting violent acts against civilians. And the E.U. would also have to think carefully about antagonizing the U.S., which...
François Godement, a senior policy fellow with the European Council on Foreign Relations and president of the Asia Centre at the Institut d'Etudes Politiques in Paris, says the Spanish bid to review the embargo is especially ill-conceived since there has been no mention of trying to squeeze concessions from China first. "There seems to be some expectation of future Chinese goodwill of an unspecified nature," he says. "But China has steadfastly refused to give anything in exchange." Godement says Europeans have long deluded themselves that China will accept them as equal partners when, in fact, Beijing...
...weeks, European leaders have dismissed talk of a bailout for debt-plagued Greece, saying the country could tackle its enormous budget problems on its own. Now, however, as fears of a default domino effect in Europe have shaken global confidence in the euro, the continent's major powers are changing their tune. Suddenly, the question is not, Will Greece need assistance? but, Who is going to help...