What Is Best for Europe?

Abstract

Across European and Western liberal market democracies, China’s rise exposes friction between economic interests and political values and challenge common foreign and security policy in the European Union. From positions of economic weakness, Greece, Hungary, and Portugal have blocked or watered down common security, human rights, and economic positions in the regional body. Beijing’s formation of a formal group with Central and Eastern European countries, the so-called 17+1, is similarly seen in Brussels as a “divide and rule” tactic. Yet while European governments receive ample criticism for neglecting their political values in order to advance economic relations with China, the economic importance of China to the EU is rarely scrutinized. For large member states like Germany and France, and smaller ones such as Denmark and Norway, trade and investment with China does not produce a relationship of economic dependency for the EU as commonly perceived, particularly as China’s state capitalist system produces new competition for European companies. Beijing’s infringements on European democratic values and competitive economic pressures are changing the public discourse on China, but without a collective response, economic relations with China will only become more asymmetric than they are today.