China postponed the EU-China summit scheduled for December 1, one of the main reasons being the coming meeting between French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, and the Tibetan spiritual leader, Dalai Lama. This meeting will take place in Poland, December 6, France being the president of the six-months EU rotating presidency.
According to Francois Godement, Director of the European Council for Foreign Relations -Asia Centre at SciencesPo in Paris:
"China's decision to cancel its scheduled summit meeting with the EU is a spectacular gesture and an unprecedented step in the bilateral relationship. In blaming Nicolas Sarkozy's upcoming meeting with the Dalai Lama, China takes its policy of routinely cancelling human rights dialogues with European officials to the highest political level. This aggressive move from China's diplomacy has been facilitated by the scurrilous divisions between EU countries themselves. Throughout the year, senior European leaders have scandalously failed to coordinate on the issue of Tibet and the Dalai Lama. The sorry spectacle of European disunity over the financial and economic crisis has confirmed to China's leaders that Europe is not a unitary actor and can be publicly provoked at no significant political cost. It is urgent for Europeans to realise the steep political price for their failure to agree on common principles and practice for their China policy."
"China's decision to cancel its scheduled summit meeting with the EU is a spectacular gesture and an unprecedented step in the bilateral relationship. In blaming Nicolas Sarkozy's upcoming meeting with the Dalai Lama, China takes its policy of routinely cancelling human rights dialogues with European officials to the highest political level. This aggressive move from China's diplomacy has been facilitated by the scurrilous divisions between EU countries themselves. Throughout the year, senior European leaders have scandalously failed to coordinate on the issue of Tibet and the Dalai Lama. The sorry spectacle of European disunity over the financial and economic crisis has confirmed to China's leaders that Europe is not a unitary actor and can be publicly provoked at no significant political cost. It is urgent for Europeans to realise the steep political price for their failure to agree on common principles and practice for their China policy."
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