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Michael Schuman is the author of “Superpower Interrupted: The Chinese History of the World” (PublicAffairs, 2020) and “The Miracle: The Epic Story of Asia’s Quest for Wealth” (HarperBusiness, 2009).
HONG KONG — Europe may not want to choose sides between the United States and China. But like it or not, its leaders will eventually have to, and the choice will be stark: Stand by the U.S., or become an international sideshow.
This isn’t what Europeans want to hear. Some political and business leaders continue to insist that Washington’s confrontational approach is the wrong response to China’s rise and prefer to stay above the fray.
“A situation to join all together against China, this is a scenario of the highest possible conflictuality,” French President Emmanuel Macron said in February, adding that he believed it would be “counterproductive.”
To be sure, Europeans have good reasons to tiptoe on the fence. They derive invaluable benefits from friendly relations with both major powers: The long-standing security arrangements with the U.S. provide stability and protection against persistent threats, such as Vladimir Putin’s Russia, while China’s economic expansion offers European companies a treasure trove of opportunities for growth they could not possibly find at home.
Europe may be able to sustain this balancing act for a while. But it will likely become increasingly untenable. Even with the combative former U.S. President Donald Trump consigned to the golf course, positions on both sides of the Pacific seem to be hardening.
U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration signaled in its first days that it fully intends to keep up the pressure on Beijing, stating that the Chinese government’s horrific treatment of Uighurs in Xinjiang amounts to “genocide” and that the U.S. must be “prepared to act, as well as impose costs” on China for its crackdown on Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement and heightened intimidation of Taiwan as well.
Meanwhile, in a belligerent speech in early February, Yang Jiechi, a member of the almighty Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), lectured that “strategic misjudgment” in Washington has caused tensions between the two nations and threatened that key issues — including Taiwan, Hong Kong and policy toward the Uighurs — “constitute a red line that must not be crossed.”
With rapprochement nowhere in sight, both China and the U.S. are poised to woo Europe ever more aggressively.
Biden has openly stated he intends to rejuvenate Washington’s traditional alliances to stand against China. Chinese President Xi Jinping may rail against this “us-versus-them” approach, calling it a “Cold War mentality,” but he’s equally guilty of it: His government’s decision in December to finalize an investment pact with the European Union was an overt attempt to draw the Europeans closer only days before Biden’s inauguration.
On the face of it, choosing the U.S. or China seems an impossible decision: between Europeans’ historic commitment to the U.S. and the democratic values that have cemented it, and the lure of new riches from a rising economic powerhouse, albeit an authoritarian one, that could ensure their economic future. In other words, it’s a choice between principles and profits.
But this is a false distinction. The choice is really between long and short-term interests.
The reality is that China aims to create a world that is not safe for Europe — strategically, economically or ideologically.
Xi is actively striving to undermine the stature of democracies in the global order. In his January speech to the World Economic Forum, he made the case that the true evil in today’s global society was the promotion of basic human rights, not the brutal suppression of them. If European leaders think they can continue to preach democratic values and conduct normal business with China, they aren’t reading the newspapers.
The more power China amasses, the less tolerant it will become with any government that won’t toe its line. “We treat our friends with fine wine,” China’s ambassador to Sweden said during a recent diplomatic dispute, “but for our enemies we got shotguns.”
China also represents a long-term economic threat to Europe — not merely because it is an advancing competitor in a global market economy, but because Beijing’s policies are designed to use and abuse that open world economy to eventually dominate it.
Beijing’s leadership makes no secret of its goal to foster high-tech industries and national champions to overtake its established Western rivals, fueled by untold billions of state aid.
By one estimate, the Chinese government has lavished more than $100 billion on its electric vehicle sector, in the form of subsidies for buyers, research and development support and other aid. Another $49 billion has been committed to create a Chinese competitor to Airbus.
Partnerships with European companies are vital to the success of China’s agenda. Beijing sees joint ventures and other corporate cooperation with foreign companies as a way to extract the advanced technology and know-how required for China to catch up to, and then leapfrog over, the Western world.
An October report from the Foundation for Defense of Democracies argues that the Chinese are targeting key sectors of the German economy — including industrial equipment and electronics — with the aim of pillaging them. China’s economic relations with Germany are “a template for the CCP strategy to dominate the 21st-century economy and set the rules for the modern world,” the report contends.
In other words, by continuing to engage with China, Germany is gaining today, but paving the way to its doom tomorrow.
There’s little chance European politicians can talk China into a better relationship.
After seven years of negotiations, the EU’s recent investment agreement with China “amounts to so little,” lamented Brussels-based think tank Bruegel in a January analysis. Littered with vague pledges and lacking methods of enforcement, Bruegel noted that even on market access, the agreement’s primary focus, “only a few concessions have been made bilaterally and all of them are limited.”
Simply hoping the Chinese will play fair is naïve. While Beijing threatens and blusters that Europeans must keep their markets open to 5G gear from Huawei, the Chinese are sidelining European telecom firms in the China market.
Ultimately, China is simply not a true partner for Europe. The longer Europeans fail to grasp this, the weaker their position will become. China will continue to exploit the divisions between democracies to advance its interests. European politicians will strain relations with the U.S. by cynically reaping economic benefits from China while Washington does all the fighting.
By the time Europe realizes it needs America’s help, it could discover Washington has found other, more reliable friends.
Ultimately, the choice between the U.S. and China should be determined by what Europeans want their role in the world to be.
They could defend the liberal order they helped create and continue to participate in global leadership. Or they could sit back and watch authoritarian China knock away the pillars of the current order, and the sources of European influence with them. Is the choice really that hard?
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