European officers are touring to China within the hope of persuading Beijing to denounce Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and funky its latest kinship with the Kremlin.

The 27-member bloc walks a tightrope, seeking to develop financial ties with China but in addition reaffirming an in depth political and cultural relationship with the US. This has grew to become significantly troublesome with the U.S. administration ramping up its anti-Beijing rhetoric and, much more so, within the wake of Russia’s invasion of its neighbor.

“It’s clear that our relationships have change into extra distant and harder in the previous few years,” Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Fee, mentioned in a speech Thursday forward of her journey to Beijing this week.

“We’ve seen a really deliberate hardening of China’s total strategic posture for a while. And it has now been matched by a ratcheting up of more and more assertive actions,” she added.

Von der Leyen is touring to Beijing alongside France’s President Emmanuel Macron this week. Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez met China’s President Xi Jinping final week. Europe’s high overseas affairs diplomat, Josep Borrell, is heading to China subsequent week.

“A number of Europeans [are] going to China,” Borrell mentioned Tuesday, including that they’ve a transparent message.

“Its place on Russia’s atrocities and warfare crimes will decide the standard of our relationships with Beijing. Within the meantime, the European Union stands united and our transatlantic neighborhood stays additionally united,” he mentioned.

China has didn’t condemn Russia’s onslaught in Ukraine. In a go to to Moscow in March, China’s chief Xi Jinping referred to his Russian counterpart as an expensive good friend.

Beijing in February proposed a 12-point peace plan for the Ukraine warfare. The plan fails to specify whether or not Russia wants to go away Ukrainian territory for a deal to be accomplished. Ukraine has made it clear it is not going to comply with any peace deal that doesn’t contain regaining full management of its territory, together with Crimea which the Kremlin annexed in 2014.

“Europe has converged quite a bit to the place of the US,” Niclas Poitiers, a analysis fellow at Bruegel, advised CNBC’s “Squawk Field Europe” Monday, including that Brussels needs to scale back dependencies on China. The EU was closely reliant on Russia for power and it now needs to keep away from related errors with different elements of the world.

“Total, there’s a consensus that we have to do one thing about our overreliance on China and guarantee they do not blackmail small member states,” Poitiers mentioned.

A latest instance of the elevated convergence between the U.S. and the EU is the choice within the Netherlands to go forward with export restrictions to China, following a transfer stateside aiming to curb Beijing’s entry to probably the most cutting-edge microchip manufacturing.

As well as, the US has additionally grew to become Europe’s fundamental supplier of liquefied pure fuel (LNG) final yr because the bloc appeared to part out Russian hydrocarbons.

There’s additionally an elevated, although pure, cooperation between EU nations and the U.S. on safety issues given most of them are additionally members of NATO.

“U.S. – European Union relations have by no means been stronger or extra vital to advance our shared pursuits,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken mentioned in Brussels Tuesday.

Blinken is assembly his fellow NATO counterparts this week, the place they may focus on additional help for Ukraine in addition to ramping up monetary contributions to the navy alliance.

However transferring nearer to the U.S. will not be a simple resolution for European leaders. In 2022, China was the most important supply of EU imports and the third largest purchaser of EU items, highlighting the financial significance that Beijing has for Europe. That is significantly related when financial progress within the EU is susceptible to the continued warfare in Ukraine.