Western leaders court China as concerns grow over US unpredictability

China has mounted a charm offensive with western leaders, most recently when Ireland’s taoiseach Micheál Martin met President Xi Jinping in Beijing this month and discussed Xi’s teenage favourite book, The Gadfly, by the Irish author Ethel Voynich. The outreach comes as allies reassess ties amid what the article describes as Donald Trump’s “increasingly erratic and destabilising power grabs on the global stage.” A Chinese state media editorial, headlined “Europe should seriously consider building a China-EU community with a shared future”, argued that the world risked “returning to the law of the jungle” and urged closer China‑EU cooperation.

The Guardian piece notes that “Europe breathed a sigh of relief this week” when Trump withdrew the threat of using military force in Greenland and said he would not impose tariffs on opponents of his plans in the Arctic, but that the US “no longer seems like a reliable partner.” Canada’s prime minister, Mark Carney, travelled to Beijing and said “Canada is forging a new strategic partnership with China,” calling the global order a point of “rupture … not a transition”.

In Beijing he agreed to lower tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles from 100% to 6.1%; Chinese EVs are now on course to make up about one‑fifth of Canada’s EV sales, the article says, and concerns about economic dependence and alleged interference appear to have dropped down the agenda.

Key Topics

World, China, Xi Jinping, Donald Trump, Micheál Martin, Mark Carney