Your best friend has abandoned you: Inside China’s latest EU charm offensive


As US President Donald Trump takes a flame-thrower to relations with Europe, Chinese diplomats have been moving through the continent with a message: your best friend has abandoned you. Let’s uphold the multilateral order together.

The message was transmitted, either in this language or similar terms, over recent weeks in Brussels, Dublin, Munich and Paris, according to people present at or briefed on the meetings, as China looks to use the fractured transatlantic alliance to draw Europe closer to its orbit.

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