Warning against the “building of blocs,” Chancellor Angela Merkel told her virtual audience at the World Economic Forum that she thought Europe should not join with either the U.S. or China against the other. Coming on top of an earlier European refusal to defer moving on an EU-China investment accord until the incoming Biden administration could weigh in on the matter, Europe has made its views crystal clear. Uighurs, Hong Kong and the growing military threats in and around the South China Sea matter much less to European policy makers than their commercial interests do.
Alexei Navalny’s challenge to President Vladimir Putin has likewise prompted a European response that is less than robust. As democracy activists and human-rights organizations on both sides of the Atlantic sought to pressure Western governments to do something about Mr. Navalny’s detention and the arrests across Russia, the EU’s high representative for foreign affairs announced that he was pressing ahead with a previously planned visit to Moscow for meetings with Mr. Putin. Light wrist slaps may follow, but little more.
Read the full article in The Wall Street Journal