The EU must clarify its position on US-China rivalry

The US–Israeli war against Iran has caught the European Union ill-prepared. Divided over how to respond, the EU may yet be drawn into a war over which it has no control, and it is now under increasing pressure from President Trump to deploy warships to the Strait of Hormuz. Despite the urgency of this new war in the Middle East, as well as the ongoing war in Ukraine, Europe cannot afford to be distracted from what is going on in East Asia, yet another geopolitical hotspot.

While the US and Chinese governments have recently been engaged in talks to stabilize their relationship, tensions between them are likely to flare up. The US and China remain highly distrustful of one another, and the focus of US foreign policy under the second Trump administration tends to shift rapidly from one region to the next. It is unlikely that the EU would be able stay out of a conflict between the US and China should the two world powers fail to keep their geopolitical rivalry under control. On Iran, the EU is behaving like an onlooker who realizes that involvement is inevitable but lacks a clear plan of action. To prevent this happening again, the EU should prepare itself for a future in which antagonism between China and the US intensifies and decide how it positions itself with regard to that rivalry.

The EU has important ties with both the US and China, but those with the former are far more consequential for European security. Most EU countries are US allies, and the EU relies on the US to keep Russia at bay. A consequence of this dependence is that the EU is unable to act as a neutral party in the China–US rivalry. At the same time, the EU also needs its economic relations with China so that it remains competitive with both the US and China, and to maintain multilateral institutions when the US is distancing itself from them. As yet, the European Union has no clear strategy for how to balance its relations with China with its high US dependency. There are two main issues on which the EU needs to define its position: first, how it views China; and second, what degree of autonomy the EU aims for in its relations with China.

When defining its view of China, the EU should do so in a way that anchors its China policies and that provides clear guidance on how to respond to geopolitical processes that involve China. This means that merely describing China as a systemic rival, economic competitor and cooperation partner – the formula by which the EU currently expresses its view – is inadequate. A strategy cannot be anchored in three separate, potentially contradictory characterizations that are not embedded in a single overarching concept. When defining how it regards China, the EU should use terms that relate directly to its core security and economic interests. These are its fundamental interests, and they are unlikely to change over the coming decades, regardless of how the international order evolves.

Being explicit about its core interests would help the EU identify where it does and does not align with the American approach. The EU and the United States have often moved in parallel on China, for instance on human rights topics. But they also compete over Chinese market share for products such as aeroplanes, cars, consumer goods and financial services. Increasingly their competition is about access to Chinese investment, technology and talent. Moreover, their geopolitical positions in relation to China are very different. To the US, China is the greatest threat to its role as global leader and its main potential military adversary. For the EU, however, China is not a direct military adversary and its significance for European security derives primarily from US–China and Russia–China interactions.

The EU also needs to decide how far it wants to go in establishing and maintaining a degree of autonomy in its approach to China. Europe’s dependence on the US circumscribes its capacity for an autonomous China policy but does not entirely negate it. American attempts to dictate to European counterparts how they act on China has tended to be a slow process that often results in Europe only partially complying with US aims. That was the case when the US wanted European countries to keep Chinese telecom equipment out of their 5G networks or refrain from exporting semiconductor technology to China. Eventually the Europeans moved in the direction the US wanted, but after a delay and sometimes not as far. So despite its very considerable resources, there are limits to the US’s control over European approaches to China. This means that the space available for the EU to shape its relations with China depends not only on the US but also on how much it prioritizes maintaining that space. The EU can decide to defend certain aspects of its autonomy in dealing with China. Rather than just waiting and seeing what the US wants it to do, it would be better to decide proactively where it will resist US pressure and when it is willing to follow the American lead.

The EU should also communicate to the US government the issues it prioritizes for an autonomous approach to China. Despite their increasingly diverging views on how the international system should function, the EU and the US continue to share important interests in relation to China. Both need to maintain the current balance of power between China and the US in East Asia, and neither can withstand China’s highly competitive economic capabilities on their own. This provides a long-term foundation for transatlantic cooperation on China. The European Union must be clear where it stands on US–China geopolitical rivalry. This would not only enable Europe to prepare for the fallout of escalating Sino-American tensions but also help stabilize relations between the EU and the United States.