Sanctions; Russia-China; US-China meeting; Vaccines come with a dose of Xi

Thanks to everyone who participated in the weekly open thread that started last Friday. It is still ongoing, one of the more active ones in a while.

China must be feeling very confident about Europe’s desire to ratify the Comprehensive Agreement on Investment, or the PRC officials have massively miscalculated. Today the PRC announced sanctions on ten EU individuals and their family members and four entities, including the European Council's Political and Security Committee, made up of 27 ambassadors, and the think tank MERICS.

The PRC sanctions came just before the announcement of coordinated sanctions by the US, UK, Canada and the EU over Xinjiang. Those sanctions again do not target any of the real decision makers on the Politburo Standing Committee, nor will they have much substantive effect. There is symbolic value to the joint coordination and announcement, but the move is more an annoyance to the PRC, though one with significant domestic propaganda value that will feed into the n…