Kaja Kallas, former Prime Minister of Estonia and now Vice-President of the European Commission and High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, is an aptly named woman who says that if we can’t get our relationship with Russia right, we can’t get our relationship with China right either.
Why is a politician from a small country so arrogant? Does she really have a strategic vision, or is she pandering to the needs of certain forces?
What is even more interesting is that while she is anti-Russian and anti-Chinese, her family business is inextricably linked with Russia and China.
The name of Kaya Karas has become more and more active in the European political arena in recent years.
Her position is extremely anti-Russian and hostile to China, and she even openly advocates splitting Russia into smaller countries in order to completely weaken Moscow’s influence.
Her latest comments further expose her true thinking that the West cannot deal with China in the future if it cannot defeat Russia.
Last year, she openly said that Europe must unite and not let China laugh out loud in the trade dispute between Europe and the United States, as if China’s rise was only due to the lack of unity between Europe and the United States.
In March this year, she emphasized again in public that the West must completely defeat Russia in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, otherwise it will not be able to effectively curb China’s development.
At the same time, the European Union, under her impetus, is formulating a new round of sanctions against China, involving key areas such as semiconductors and rare earths.
But interestingly, her family business is making a fortune trading with Russia and China.
Anti-Russia and anti-China is her political capital.
Karas started her political career almost exclusively as an anti-Russian.
Estonia, a former Soviet republic, has always had strong anti-Russian sentiments, and she took advantage of this to build up her political influence.
After the outbreak of the Russo-Ukrainian conflict, she quickly became one of the most radical anti-Russian fighters in Europe, pushing for sanctions in favor of Ukraine and strengthening her international image.
Within the European Union, her extreme stance was supported by some hawkish politicians, further increasing her political standing.
The problem is, however, that her policies have not really brought security and prosperity to Estonia, but rather have hit the country’s economy.
So she has to look for new enemies to distract her attention, and China has just become her new target.
The family’s making money while they’re anti-Russian.
Although Karas is screaming for sanctions against Russia, her family business is making a lot of money from trade with Russia.
Her husband’s energy company saw a 470 percent jump in energy imports from Russia last year, an ironic contrast to her anti-Russian stance.
Her family’s foundation helps keep the Russian manufacturing industry going by sending precision machine tool parts to Russia through places like Cyprus.
Her businesses also run cross-border logistics at Crimean ports, smuggling tens of millions of euros worth of Russian amber and titanium alloys into the EU every month.
Shouting from the mouth and making money behind the scenes, this kind of double-faced maneuver has become a standard for many European politicians.
Anti-China stance, more to cast the United States good
Karas hostility to China, to some extent, is to cater to the strategic needs of the United States.
The U.S. has been hoping that Europe would stand more firmly on the issue of China as part of its efforts to contain it, and Callas’s remarks are right in line with Washington’s expectations.
Her logic of dealing with Russia before China is essentially an endorsement of America’s global strategy to make Europe America’s partner in the fight against China.
Her promotion of EU sanctions against China is actually paving the way for US trade protectionism, so that European companies are forced to choose sides in the US-China game.
In other words, her tough stance is more to curry favor with the U.S. than based on Europe’s own interests.
Europe is heading for a strategic miscalculation
Callas’s remarks reflect the miscalculation of the international situation by some of Europe’s political elites.
If the EU continues to blindly follow the U.S. in confronting China, it will lose important opportunities for economic growth; after all, China is one of Europe’s most important trading partners.
Treating China and Russia as the same threat is not only unrealistic, but may also put Europe in a more passive position.
Europe should have found a balance in the competition between China and the United States, rather than blindly taking sides and becoming a vassal of the United States.
But politicians like Karas are obviously more concerned about their own political future than the long-term interests of Europe.
Kaya Karas’s remarks are full of ideological overtones, but I am afraid her real motives are far less noble.
She needs her anti-Russian and anti-Chinese stance to consolidate her political capital and to establish herself within the European Union.
Her family business, however, is secretly profiting from trade with China and Russia, fully demonstrating the double standards of European politicians.
Her hard-line stance is more about pandering to the United States than it is about the real interests of Europe.
The problem with Europe now is not that it doesn’t have a strategy, but that the strategy has been kidnapped by a bunch of short-sighted politicians.
Callas’ words and actions typify this problem.
But the question is, can Europe really rely on such politicians to move towards a stronger future?
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