Between Rhetoric and Strategy: Analysing Evolving European Approaches Towards China

Introduction Several factors have transformed Europe’s relationship with China in recent years. Human rights abuses in Xinjiang, crackdowns in Hong Kong, China’s weaponisation of supply chains during the COVID-19 pandemic, economic coercion against Lithuania, a lack of reciprocity in trade, aggression in the South China Sea, tensions in the Taiwan Strait, Chinese espionage in European countries, and Beijing’s revisionist tendencies have increasingly put China at odds with European values and interests. At the same time, the EU’s trade deficit with China stood at €400 billion in 2022, [1] the EU-China Comprehensive Agreement on Investment (CAI) still awaits ratification by the European Parliament, and bilateral summits have failed to accomplish much (the 2022 meeting was described as the “dialogue of the deaf” by Josep Borrell, the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy). [2] The Russia-Ukraine war has forced Europe to apply and extrapolate the lessons learnt from its over-reliance on Russian energy to rethink its lopsided strategic and economic dependencies on China. Moreover, the strengthening of the transatlantic alliance and Europe’s dependence on American security have constrained the space for European strategic autonomy in the face of heightened US-China great power competition. Recent events, such as the signing of a ’no-limits partnership’ between China and Russia, the Chinese Communist Party Congress, and Chinese President Xi Jinping’s increasingly authoritarian leadership style, have further instigated negative shifts in European perceptions of China.