China seeks counterweight to US in Europe but only finds anger, frustration

After rebuking a senior Czech lawmaker for visiting Taiwan this month, the Chinese foreign minister, Wang Yi, received an obscenity-laced public letter that punctuated just how far China’s standing in Europe has fallen.

“You should be ashamed,” another lawmaker, Pavel Novotny, an outspoken district mayor in Prague, wrote, calling the Chinese “impudent, thoughtless, uncouth clowns” and demanding an apology.

The outburst was not an isolated one.

In country after country, China is facing rising anger over its policies and its behavior — from trade to human rights — a major setback on a continent that Beijing has viewed as a