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EU UNFRIENDS CHINESE APP: The European Commission has banned staff from using the Chinese social media app TikTok over security concerns, in the latest example of growing strains between Beijing and the West, Jamil Anderlini reports this morning. 

DELETE THE APP NOW: A senior official told POLITICO that all staff were ordered on Thursday morning to remove TikTok from their official devices and that they must also remove the app from their personal devices if they have any work-related apps installed. 

Or if you really wanna use it… Alternatively, the staff members can delete work-related apps from their personal phones if they insist on keeping TikTok. 

NEXT STEP: The other institutions of the European Union, including the Council and the Parliament, are likely to follow up eventually with a ban on the Chinese app, although it may take much longer for the Parliament in particular to be able to implement such a policy. Here’s the full story.

IT’S BEEN A YEAR: Friday is the one-year mark since Russian leader Vladimir Putin launched all-out war against Ukraine, and China is keen to shore up diplomatic relations with Moscow in this momentous week. On Wednesday, Putin rolled out the red carpet at the Kremlin for China’s top foreign policy official, Wang Yi, hosting him on a significantly smaller table than the long one separating him from French President Emmanuel Macron.

Full of praise: On Ukraine, Wang “complimented Russia for repeating its willingness to resolve problems through dialogue and negotiations,” according to a Chinese foreign ministry statement on his Kremlin meeting. “China will work with Russia to … deepen political mutual trust, strengthen strategic coordination, pursue pragmatic cooperation, and safeguard the legitimate interest of our two countries.”

Xi will visit Russia: During the meeting with Wang, Mr. Putin said the two countries had agreed to Xi’s visit to Moscow, without specifying the timing. The Wall Street Journal reported that Xi’s visit could take place in April or May, possibly coinciding with Russia’s celebration of its victory over Nazi Germany in World War II.

NEW SECURITY INITIATIVE: In Beijing, Foreign Minister Qin Gang announced a “concept paper” elaborating President Xi Jinping’s Global Security Initiative, toeing the Russian line on concepts as the “indivisibility of security” while opposing the West’s sanctions. Surely this reinforces Beijing’s status as a “systemic rival” for the European Union, you wonder? Not entirely.

Mesmerizing charm offensive: Before his Moscow trip, Wang was everywhere in Europe. He toured four EU countries, meeting officials in Paris, Rome, Budapest and the Munich Security Conference. According to him, China will put forth a “position paper” on achieving peace in Ukraine on Friday. This came after weeks of intense outreach by Chinese diplomats across European capitals, while the seasoned diplomat Wu Hongbo, China’s special envoy for Europe, also visited the continent. It’s all smiles, there’s no wolf-warrior rhetoric, and Beijing is keen to test the limit of the transatlantic strength at a time when it’s engaged in escalating tension with Washington.

“We’re not naïve, but China’s charm offensive does make one wonder what the exact game plan is,” noted a European official working on the China file.

MARK YOUR CALENDAR (FOR NOW): China Direct understands that Sweden, currently chair of the rotating presidency of the Council of the EU, is planning to organize an Indo-Pacific foreign ministers’ meeting on May 13, according to two EU officials. It will be modelled on the first one organized by the French last year, comprising ministers from both EU and Indo-Pacific countries. One of the officials stressed that the formal invitations have yet to go out, while the date could still be subject to last-minute changes.

WELCOME TO CHINA DIRECT. This is your host Stuart Lau, Europe-China Correspondent at POLITICO.

A PEACE OF PAPER: As the U.S. and Europe step up supplies of weapons to help Ukraine defend against the aggressor, China will present a “position paper” on “political resolution of the Ukraine crisis.” This has been widely (mis)translated as China’s “peace plan” by foreign officials who recently met and got an update from Wang.

Sneak peek 1: According to Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin, the paper will “reiterate President Xi’s important appeals, including respect for territorial integrity of all countries, abiding by the principles under the U.N. Charter, and placing emphasis on the reasonable security concerns of all countries.”

Sneak peek 2: China will, according to Wang, again discourage nuclear war, a long-standing position of China since before the Russian war. The paper will also call for a halt to attacking civilian nuclear power stations.

READING IS BELIEVING: Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, who met Wang on the sidelines of the Munich conference, said the Chinese envoy shared with him “key points” of the Chinese “peace plan,” but added: “We look forward to receiving the text, as this is not something where one can draw conclusions just by hearing what the plan is about. We need to know all the details. As soon as we receive the document, we will carefully study it and draw conclusions.”

NEXT, XI’S SECURITY PROPOSAL: Amid expectation over what China will say in the peace proposal, Beijing also announced details of the Global Security Initiative, another brainchild of Xi’s. (This, coupled with the Global Development Initiative, will likely form the bedrock of Xi’s diplomatic focus for the next few years.)

Strong anti-Western vibe: Qin, the foreign minister, made reference to Ukraine and Taiwan while launching the concept paper for the initiative. “We urge relevant countries to immediately stop adding fuel to the fire, stop blaming China and stop provoking the situation by using references like ‘Ukraine today, Taiwan tomorrow’,” he said. “The external suppression and containment of China has been continuously escalated and intensified, posing a serious threat to China’s sovereignty and security.”

Appeal to Global South: South Africa’s Ambassador to China Siyabonga Cwele was invited to Qin’s speech. “We really hope that all developed countries can follow that path of making sure that they don’t use their economic strength or military strength to coerce others,” Cwele told China’s state-run Global Times newspaper.

Probe the Nord Stream 2 blast: In another move of siding with Russia, China’s representative in the U.N. backed the Russian move to seek a thorough investigation into the explosion of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline linking Germany and Russia. Russian and Chinese state media have suggested — at times implicitly — that it was the U.S. that blew up the energy infrastructure that’d become a symbol of Germany’s reliance on Russia. The Chinese move seemed to be a move to prompt the U.S. to veto a full investigation on the U.N. level, thereby allowing Beijing (and Moscow) to say Washington has something to hide. The Chinese paper Global Times has more.

ARMS FEARS: The U.S. is this week raising concerns about China potentially sending arms to China. “To date, we have seen Chinese companies… provide non-lethal support to Russia for use in Ukraine. The concern that we have now is based on information we have that they’re considering providing lethal support,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said over the weekend, shortly after his meeting with Wang in Munich.

TONY’S CONCERN IS MINE, TOO: The EU is watching carefully. “If Secretary Blinken is concerned, I’m concerned as well,” Danish Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen said. His Swedish counterpart, Tobias Billström, said: “If such a decision is taken [by China] it will definitely have consequences, of course … We stand side by side with the United States on that message.”

Prague’s analysis: “My personal view is that China has no real interest in the defeat of Russia. They need Russia not too strong, but also not to collapsed,” Czech President-elect Petr Pavel told CNN, adding: “because Russia will be their natural ally against the West. So, I believe there might be some kind of support from China to Russia.”

BORRELL’S CONFESSION: EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, asked about Blinken’s comments, said: “I have to confess that I had a good personal relation with State Counsellor Wang Yi for a long time … We had a frank conversation in Munich, and he was very clear. I can repeat his words: that ‘China does not provide arms to countries at war,” and “they are not providing arms to Russia”, and “they will not provide arms to Russia’. That is what he told me.”

But but but: “I expressed our strong concern about China providing arms to Russia,” Borrell said. “I asked him [Wang] not to do that, and expressing not only our concern, but the fact that for us, it would be a red line in our relationship.”

SUMMIT UP! EU and Chinese officials are planning the next summit featuring President Xi, as well as Charles Michel and Ursula von der Leyen, presidents of the European Council and European Commission, before the summer holidays.

When exactly? June is now floated as a possibility, with the two EU leaders expected to fly to Beijing to conduct the first face-to-face summit since the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic.

LET’S TALK HUMAN RIGHTS FIRST: Before the summit took place, the EU tried to organize a few engagements with China — and the first one to happen was the human rights dialogue.

The Europeans didn’t mince words: “The EU expressed serious concern at the persistent restrictions on the exercise of fundamental freedoms, use of forced labour, limits on due process rights and lack of judicial independence in China.”

Look at yourself, Beijing says: Chinese representatives meanwhile “focused on the situation and treatment of refugees and migrants in the EU and manifestations of racism and xenophobia in the EU.” Here’s a long statement issued by the European External Action Service.

UK CALL, AT LAST: British Foreign Minister James Cleverly spoke with his Chinese counterpart Qin on Monday. “I raised China’s human rights abuses in Xinjiang & the need for peace in the Taiwan Strait,” Cleverly said in a Twitter post. “We also agreed to work together to resolve issues on climate and trade.”

Veiled threat? “With harmony comes prosperity,” Qin told Cleverly, citing a Chinese idiom. “Bilateral cooperation cannot be detached from a good atmosphere between the two countries.”

BACK TO MORE WANG: Beyond Moscow and Munich, China’s top diplomat Wang Yi also visited China’s best friend in the EU — Hungary. The fact that he’s visiting Hungary on his first trip to Europe since his promotion to the 25-strong Politburo is widely interpreted by EU officials as China’s divide-and-conquer policy. And Wang went beyond the ordinary protocol to illustrate that special friendship

Péter’s treat: Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó met Wang while skipping a Brussels meeting for the 27 EU ministers. Apart from the usual diplomatic meeting, Szijjártó took Wang to a snack shop, ordering a coffee and a cream cheese toast out in the open.

CHATGPT HITS THE GREAT FIREWALL: Chinese regulators have told major tech companies not to offer ChatGPT services to the public amid growing alarm in Beijing over the AI-powered chatbot’s uncensored replies to user queries, Nikkei Asia reported. Tencent and Ant Group, the fintech affiliate of Alibaba Group Holding, are among those instructed not to offer access to the instantly popular services on their platforms, either directly or via third parties. Like it or not, Chinese openness doesn’t apply to whatever the censorship apparatus cannot fully control.

CLEAN DRIVE: China is now a world leader in making and buying electric vehicles. And the momentum hasn’t slowed: In just the past two years, the number of EVs sold annually in the country grew from 1.3 million to a whopping 6.8 million — thanks to effective government policies. MIT Technology Review has more.

MISSING TECH BANKER: Bao Fan, the chief executive of China Renaissance Holdings and one of the best-known Chinese billionaire bankers, has gone missing, according to the institution. Bao is a leading deal broker, with top tech companies DiDi and Meituan being his main clients. China may have spent months trying to reassure Western businesses that its push for a stronger focus on state-owned companies wouldn’t come at the expense of private ones, but it’s exactly cases like Bao’s that deal a blow of investors’ confidence about China’s tolerance of people like Bao who moved some of their assets to other markets like Singapore — a move that would no doubt be construed as unpatriotic and unreliable from the Chinese government’s perspective.

SIXTH TONE has an excellent report why human trafficking remains a serious — but underreported — issue in China. “My parents sold me,” a 16-year-old told the Shanghai-based media. The report comes a year after the plight of a “chained woman” in rural China; she was forced to give birth to eight children while in captivity.

MANY THANKS: To my editor Christian Oliver and producer Grace Stranger.

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