When the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, visited the White House to see the US president, Donald Trump, on Feb 28, nobody expected fireworks. Whereas Trump’s previous visitors in the Oval Office last week, France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, and the United Kingdom’s prime minister, Sir Keir Starmer, had fawned upon him (whereas Macron pawed him incessantly, Starmer, in a cringeworthy gesture, pulled out of his pocket a letter from King Charles inviting Trump to make what Starmer called an “unprecedented” second state visit to Britain), everybody imagined that Zelensky would be no less obsequious. Instead, they got the shock of their lives.  

Although, as part of Trump’s laudable efforts to bring the three-year Ukraine conflict to an end, Zelensky was expected to sign an agreement giving America access to his country’s rare minerals, Trump called the signing ceremony off after a blazing row before the world’s media. Zelensky found himself accused of being “disrespectful” and “ungrateful” for what the US had done for him (grievous crimes in Trump’s eyes). Having berated him for not being “ready for peace”, Trump accused Zelensky of “gambling with World War III”.

Once the press conference ended, Zelensky, who had been promised a luncheon before the signing ceremony, was ordered to leave the White House. He cannot have been surprised, and some observers feared that he and Trump could have exchanged blows had he stayed any longer.

However, although the optics were dreadful, let nobody forget that anything is possible in Trumpland. As the co-author of The Art of the Deal (1987), Trump is a master of manipulating situations and achieving outcomes that best suit his goals. It may well be that after the bust-up, there will be peace talks, following which the deal will be signed (on terms even more favorable to Trump). Indeed, Starmer has already urged Zelensky to eat humble pie and go back and patch things up with Trump (who may well have told Starmer to tell Zelensky this in the telephone call they had shortly before Zelensky’s arrival in London).  

The global reactions to the fiasco were varied. Whereas, for example, Macron and Starmer rushed out messages of support for Zelensky (imperiling any benefits derived from their White House groveling), there was glee in Moscow. The former Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev, now leader of the ruling United Russia Party, praised Trump for his “dressing-down” of Zelensky, adding, “The ungrateful pig got a solid slap from the masters of the pigsty”, which was “useful”.

Although many of the European Union’s (EU) leaders mechanically sided with Zelensky, one notable exception was Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orban. He wrote on X that “Strong men make peace, weak men make war”, and thanked Trump for standing “bravely for peace, even if it was difficult for many to digest”.

Since 2010, the EU, as part of its plans to morph into a superstate (one of the reasons the UK quit the bloc in 2020), has had its own European External Action Service. It operates as its diplomatic service with missions around the world and is responsible for executing all the EU’s international relations. Its head is the high representative for foreign affairs and security policy (high representative), who is also a vice-president of the European Commission. Although the high representatives have always been lightweights who made little impact, the incumbent, Kaja Kallas, loves grandstanding.

She was Estonia’s prime minister from 2021 to 2024 (when she assumed her present role), and is remembered for allowing NATO to establish a massive military presence in her country, which lies on Russia’s western flank (then, as now, she relished antagonizing Moscow). Not surprisingly, she quickly became NATO’s pin-up girl, and its then-secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, on June 27, 2024, praised her to the roof for her “unprecedented” support. This had enabled NATO to base its multinational battlegroup in her country, together with its fighter jets.  

Once Kallas heard the news from Washington, she immediately threw oil on the fire. Instead of praising Trump’s peace-making initiatives, she sought to infuriate him even further (thereby poisoning EU-US relations at a time when Trump is threatening a trade war, hardly good diplomacy). She announced, “We stand with Ukraine”, and pledged further support so that it could “continue to fight back the aggressor”. In other words, like the arms manufacturers and the warmongers, she wanted to keep the conflict going indefinitely, despite its futility and carnage.

As she saw no scope for a peacemaker like Trump to lead what she called “the free world”, Kallas said it was necessary for it to find “a new leader”. Although she did not indicate who that might be, it was hopefully not (if Europe is to retain any credibility) somebody like Macron, Starmer, or Germany’s Olaf Scholz. However, it was almost certainly not the inimitable Viktor Orban, even though he enjoys the unique advantage of being a European leader who is simultaneously trusted in Washington, Moscow, and Beijing.

With China, Russia and the US all wanting an end to the conflict, it is time for Kallas to get real. The era of the warmongers is coming to an end, and NATO must reconsider its direction of travel. If Kallas cannot come to terms with the new realities, the EU will become even more irrelevant and her tenure will be even less distinguished than that of her predecessors

Early on, Kallas realized that her career path would be facilitated if she badmouthed not only Moscow but also Beijing, even if it meant spreading fake news. In 2020, for example, while chairman of Estonia’s Reform Party, she announced that China’s treatment of its Uygur minority was reminiscent of Nazi Germany’s treatment of its Jewish population during the Holocaust (she called the parallels “frightening”). As a careerist, it did not concern her that this was as vile a calumny as could be imagined and was offensive to both China and Israel.

Having laid the groundwork in that way, she then called it “regrettable” that the EU had not managed to shape a strong common position on China (a line that did her no harm when she sought to become the EU’s high representative four years later).    

After becoming Estonia’s prime minister, Kallas, realizing its potential, upped her China-hostile messaging. On April 16, 2021, she announced that China’s activities “in and towards Estonia have grown”, and any “attempt to gain influence must be resisted resolutely”.

With the bit between her teeth, she then waxed lyrical about the “plight of students from Hong Kong and Macao at Oxford University and other educational institutions”. Moreover, given her “concerns” over the human rights situation in China generally and the Uyghur population in particular, she said she had “raised human rights violations” in the UN Human Rights Council.  

She clearly saw her new role as a platform for spreading the type of anti-China propaganda beloved, for example, by the then-US president, Joe Biden, the former UK prime minister, Liz Truss (another shameless careerist), and other NATO leaders.

Kallas cannot have been surprised when China’s ambassador to Estonia, Li Chao, denounced the “most ridiculous lies and rumors of the century”, which were attributable to “malicious political manipulations”.

However, Kallas also had international ambitions of her own, and the Estonian prime ministership was only a springboard. In November 2024, when she attended the confirmation hearings for EU high representative, she once again played the China card. She branded China the country that “most covertly” sought to “change the rules-based international order”, with the support of Russia and Iran, and called on the EU to tackle China’s “threat”.

This delighted the EU, and Kallas became its high representative on Dec 1, 2024. Her portfolio includes the bloc’s policy toward China, Russia and the US.

However, once a propagandist, always a propagandist, as she quickly demonstrated. Even though it was NATO’s expansionist policy that helped provoke the Ukraine conflict, which it now wants to prolong, she sought to shift the blame for the situation onto China. On Feb 17, she accused China of being an “enabler of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine”, which was delusional.

As Kallas must have known, China, in February 2023, became the first country to produce a set of comprehensive peace proposals designed to end the conflict. However, they were spurned by the EU, the US and NATO. As they say in England, she was “talking through her hat”.

This may not have mattered too much in the days when Kallas was still the leader of Estonia’s Reform Party, but, in her current incarnation, it is a different story. As both Trump and Zelensky have acknowledged, China has a key part to play in resolving the conflict, and Kallas’ inflammatory smears were in nobody’s interests. As the Chinese foreign minister, Wang Yi, told her at the Munich Security Conference last month, Beijing is trying to be as constructive as possible, and backed both Europe and Ukraine having a seat at the table in peace talks (which should have pleased her, as Trump sees no role for the Europeans).

With China, Russia and the US all wanting an end to the conflict, it is time for Kallas to get real. The era of the warmongers is coming to an end, and NATO must reconsider its direction of travel. If Kallas cannot come to terms with the new realities, the EU will become even more irrelevant and her tenure will be even less distinguished than that of her predecessors.  

The author is a senior counsel and law professor, and was previously the director of public prosecutions of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.

The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.