- cross-posted to:
- world@quokk.au
- globalnews@lemmy.zip
- cross-posted to:
- world@quokk.au
- globalnews@lemmy.zip
European leaders headed to Asia this week with a key message: We need to work closer together to preserve the rules-based order against threats from China and Russia.
Kaja Kallas, the European Union’s top diplomat, and French President Emmanuel Macron emphasized the links between Vladimir Putin’s war against Ukraine and Russia’s deepening relationship with China during a range of appearances in Southeast Asia in recent days.
“It is the greatest challenge of our time,” Kallas told an audience at the Shangri-La security conference in Singapore.
[…]
Kallas accused China of enabling Russia’s war machine, saying 80% of dual-use goods used to fight Ukraine come from the world’s second-biggest economy.
[…]
"If you are worried about China, you should be worried about Russia,” Kallas said.
Western officials accuse China of supplying Russia with critical technologies, including drones, while saying that both nations have engaged in cyberattacks, acts of sabotage and dangerous activities related to infrastructure such as deep-sea cables.
Kallas called on European and Asian partners to work together on tackling covert shadow fleets of tankers and to review maritime security laws. North Korea’s direct support of Russia’s war efforts – including missiles, ammunition and troops – has further brought the conflict closer to home on both sides of the world.
"If China doesn’t want NATO being involved in Southeast Asia or in Asia, they should prevent North Korea from engaging on European soil,” Macron said in a keynote address in Singapore on Friday.
Speaking to reporters after a meeting on Thursday of a little-known defense grouping known as the Five Power Defence Arrangements, which brings together the Commonwealth nations of Singapore, Australia, Malaysia, New Zealand and the UK, officials from several member countries acknowledged some common challenges. That included risks against underwater information infrastructure in Europe and Asia.
“It is a complex and new area,” said General Mohd Nizam Jaffar, Malaysia’s chief of defense forces. “But we are looking into it.”
[…]
Nations in the Indo-Pacific and Southeast Asia are caught between the threat of dramatically higher US levies and a surge of cheaper Chinese goods that could cost them manufacturing jobs. Many rely on China economically and the US for defense.
[…]
In an apparent jab at the US and China a day earlier, Macron condemned “revisionist countries” that seek to impose “spheres of coercion.” He called for fresh cooperation between Europe and Asia based on free trade, jointly mitigating risks and autonomous decision-making. In Europe’s case, that means being allied to the US as a matter of choice but not being dependent on it, while wanting to cooperate and compete fairly with China.
“Our shared responsibility is to ensure with others that our countries are not collateral victims of the imbalances linked to the choices made by the superpowers,” the French president said.
[…]
Thanks, I apparently misunderstood regarding UNASUR and ASEAN.
I can see how that would piss off people from Afrika, especialoly former french colonies. Complete lack of “reading the room” as they say.
Yes the French are often arrogant for some reason, they also think Napoleon is considered a hero in Europe, despite he was a war monger.
IDK if France was better or worse than other colonial powers, but being a colonial power is wrong to begin with. And France has to acknowledge that before anything else.
I don’t think Europe ever even attempted to repair the dammage we did. But to be fair I don’t really know how that could be done.
We do all have different strategies, England went ‘well if a part is white we can keep control’, France went ‘well if a part is poor we can keep control’ and the Netherlands and Belgium went ‘well as long as it doesn’t cost us money we don’t need to be in control’ don’t know about Portugal and Spain but seems eu relationship with Latin America is in a better state than eu relationship with France Afrique.
I don’t get it, I don’t think there’s an effort by Europe to control Africa. Just as even UK isn’t trying to control India anymore.
This has nothing to with poverty or white minorities, or if it’s cheap. African countries are not colonies anymore. They are their own nations, and can make their own alliances.
Not by EU institutions, but there has been a lot of effort to control various African countries by European countries. Again I don’t really know about Spain and Portugal, but it is widely known France has continued to militarily back governments it favoured after they gained independence and also had major economic influence through their currency (more here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CFA_franc).
I wasn’t referring to countries with white minorities, I meant England still holds power (Although not very hard power) over former colonies with white majorities such as Canada, Australia and NZ but much less so in former colonies where the original inhabitants have power (such as India and pakistan).
Yes these countries are their own nations now, but it seems not easy to let go. Not just on a government level but also private wealth and public companies still have business related to colonial times.
We are moving in the right directions but if you were to interview people in these former colonies a lot of them will tell you we are not there yet. Not only is the damage not fully repaired (if this is even possible), there is still influence happening. Although less and less, since for example the current Mali government kicked out the French military in favour of Russian soldiers.