US-China spats rattle world, prompting calls for unity

Beijing: Antagonisms between the US and China are rattling governments around the world, prompting a German official to warn of Cold War 2.0 and Kenya's president to appeal for unity to fight the Coronavirus pandemic.

Global trade already was depressed by two years of tariff warring between the world's two biggest economies. That rancour has spread to include Hong Kong, Chinese Muslims, spying accusations and control of the South China Sea.

Caught in the middle, other world governments are trying to defend their own interests.

Chancellor Angela Merkel wants to preserve trade and cooperation on global warming but says security law tightening Beijing's control over Hong Kong is a difficult issue." The potential disruption from the Hong Kong security law of the autonomy Beijing promised to the former British colony is no reason to stop talking but is a worrying development, Merkel said Monday.

Europe's biggest economy has yet to take a final position on Chinese tech giant Huawei despite U.S. pressure to exclude its equipment from next-generation telecom networks as a possible security risk.

China is an important partner for us but also a competitor, Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said in a statement after a videoconference Friday with his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi.

Peter Beyer, the government's coordinator for trans-Atlantic cooperation, expressed alarm in an interview with the RedaktionsNetzwerk Deutschland newspaper group.

We are experiencing the beginning of a Cold War 2.0, Beyer said. He criticized both sides but said, the U.S. is our most important partner outside the EU, and that is how it will stay. President Emmanuel Macron calls President Donald Trump my friend but is trying to avoid riling Beijing.

France has not echoed Trump's criticism of Beijing's handling of the Coronavirus, but legislators applauded Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian last week when he condemned abuses of minority Uighurs in China's northwest.

Le Drian mentioned mass arrests, disappearances, forced labour, forced sterilisations, the destruction of Uighur cultural heritage. He said France has asked that the camps be closed.

All these practices are unacceptable, the minister said. We condemn them. Trump's ambivalence toward U.S. allies and flouting of diplomatic norms has alarmed France.

Sino-American tensions don't benefit France, said Valerie Niquet of the Foundation for Strategic Research, a think tank.