London, UK (CU)_ Over a video conference conducted on the 30th of December 2020, between Chinese President Xi Jingping and European leaders, the two parties hammered out an investment agreement on amid rising tension between China and the US, and concerns for over worsening human rights violations carried out by China’s communist government.
While the agreement is expected to Europe greater access to China’s markets, a senior aide to President-elect Joe Biden told CNN that Biden had urged European leaders against finalizing an agreement without addressing pressing issues surrounding the deal.
Furthermore, China’s human rights track record largely concerns a population of over 2 million Uighur Muslims in residing in Xinjian province who are allegedly being forced to work in several “re-education” camps in the region.
Member of the European Parliament, Guy Verhofstadt, said that “The stories coming out of Xinjiang are pure horror. The story in Brussels is we’re ready to sign an investment treaty with China. Under these circumstances any Chinese signature on human rights is not worth the paper it is written on.”
Meanwhile, in December last year, the European Parliament issued its condemnation of “Chinese government-led system of forced labor […] in particular the exploitation of Uyghur, ethnic Kazakh and Kyrgyz, and other Muslim minority groups […] in factories within and outside internment camps in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.”
Nonetheless, the agreement similar to the US-China Phase I agreement, the EU-China agreement would accompany provisions to “uphold” the bloc’s interests and to promote its key values, President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen stated on Twitter.
