EU stated in 2019 that it views China simultaneously as a ‘cooperation partner, negotiating partner, economic competitor, and systemic rival’. The last couple of years there has been an increasing emphasis on the latter, and among the China hawks this is now the only part that matters. It is difficult to get a clear understanding of what the EU means by the term ‘systemic rival’. It clearly designs somebody they think is a threat, but it sounds a bit softer than ‘adversary’ or outright ‘enemy’. However, the difference seems to be shrinking these days.
While the economic challenge is very real, as China now is a serious competitor in many EU key competence areas such as machine tools, cars, renewable energy, green economy, and so on, it is difficult to understand, why China should be considered a military threat to Europe. China is far away, there are no military or territorial disputes between China and the EU and the risk of a Chinese military attack on EU is zero.
One of the most outspoken China-bashers is the Danish Prime Minister, who argues that China is a threat, because (i) China is part of an authoritarian axis together with Russia, North Korea and Iran (‘forces of darkness’, she calls them), (ii) China is conducting business as usual with Russia despite the Ukraine war, hence undermining the West’s sanctions against Russia, and (iii) China challenges together with Russia the traditional Western world hegemony (the US-led ‘rule based order’).
It is increasingly clear that the main reason for the aggressive anti-Chinese rhetoric is the latter. In the latest ‘Evaluation of Threats’ from the Danish Military Intelligence Agency, it is stated (correctly) that ‘China is today the only country that can independently challenge the international position and influence of the United States’. The US wants to keep the world leadership, and several EU leaders, among these again the Danish PM, are offering to support the US in this endeavour, for example by sending warships to the Pacific. The NATO general secretary is on the same line: ‘Nato should further develop Indo-Pacific partnerships’. This is indeed what could be called ‘advanced defence’, even more advanced than 'the defence' NATO has practised in Yugoslavia, Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Politico Magazine in 2024 called a EU team consisting of Ursula von der Leyen, Mette Frederiksen, and Kaja Kallas a dream team. Mette Frederiksen didn’t make it into the EU leadership, but even so she has succeeded in positioning herself centrally in the EU decision-making process. For some of us it looks more like a ‘horror team'. In the picture: to the left Kaja Kallas with Ursula von der Leyen and to the right with Mette Frederiksen. Source: Wikimedia and Kaja Kallas’ X-account.
The distinction between economic challenge and military threat is important. China is not a military threat to the EU countries, but it is indeed a threat to the world hegemony, which Western countries have had for several hundred years. It is a threat in the sense that, as China expands its economic cooperation with countries in Asia, Middle East, Africa and Latin America (‘the Global South’), its global political influence increases. As China’s economy grows, it is increasing its military capacity too. However, it has no capacity (yet) to project military power outside its own region, neither has it - up to now - shown any interest in doing so (its only overseas military base is in Djibouti at the Red Sea, close to the French, US, Japanese and Italian ones).
It is in this context important to keep in mind that China’s economic outreach around the world, has two particular characteristics:
Firstly, China is not trying to export any particular ideology or governance model. This is very different from the West, which is keen on exporting its own governance model (multi-party democracy) and ‘universal rights’ (human rights, gender equality, LGBT rights and so on). Contrary to what is often claimed, China has no particular preference for cooperating with authoritarian countries. It cooperates with any country, where it perceives a mutual benefit and interest. Despite all the US and NATO lofty grandstanding, this is actually not much different from what they themselves are doing, as they in reality cooperate with anybody where they think there is good business to be made, independently of their governance (including absolute monarchies as Saudi Arabia, UAE, Oman and Morocco and authoritarian democracies such as Pakistan, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Turkey, Singapore, Uganda and many, many others).
Secondly, contrary to the West, China does not see economic cooperation with the Global South as a zero-sum game. They don’t put pressure on countries from the Global South to limit their cooperation with the West. The Western countries do that, pressuring these countries to limit their cooperation with China (and Russia). The message is: ‘It’s either us or them’. ‘You can’t have both’. Smaller countries often give in to this pressure (as did Panama to the US recently, limiting its ties with China), while bigger ones up to now have proven more difficult to subdue (among others India, South Africa, Brazil, Turkey, Indonesia and Saudi Arabia).
During the Biden administration, the US promoted the idea of collaborating with the EU in creating an ‘alliance of democracies’ against dictatorships and authoritarian regimes, first of all the Russian-Chinese axis (together with Iran, North Korea and a couple of additional ‘evil’ countries). The alliance would be guided by concerns for human rights and democracy. The idea was supported by most of the usual NATO members and allies, but has been met with scepticism by most of the Global South. NATO’s condemnation of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the following sanctions were seen as hypocritical, taking into account US’ and NATO’s long trajectory of invasions and bombing of other countries (Latin America, Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, and so on). It has not helped that most NATO countries have refused to condemn the Israeli land grab and atrocities in Gaza and the West Bank. Nor has the US threats against Venezuela, seizing tankers and confiscating the oil, not only in international but even in Venezuelan territorial waters. To many in the Global South this amounts to banal acts of piracy and makes the Western discourse about the importance of freedom of navigation sound increasingly hollow. Condemnations from UN. No condemnation from the EU, only some unintelligible muttering.
Most people in the Global South fail to understand how the EU, supposedly concerned about human rights, can support the Israeli atrocities in Gaza and the Wst Bank. Or the EU silence regarding the US threats of invading Venezuela and the extrajudicial killings in the Caribbean Sea. The result is that EU is gradually losing influence in the Global South. Picture: Ashraf Amra/Wikimedia Commons
What exactly EU pretends to gain by inflating the ‘Chinese threat’ is unclear. If the priority is to defeat Russia in Ukraine, why suddenly open a new military front against China? There is zero probability that it will make the Chinese change their strategic priorities, and one of these is to maintain a friendly Russia on its Northern Flank. The EU countries (and UK) are gradually losing ground around the world. Do they really think they will regain their past might and glory by taking on China?
It is by now a commonly accepted reality that the Western world hegemony is over and EU must find a place in the emerging multipolar world. EU doesn’t gain anything by following the US campaign to ‘isolate and contain China’. A surging China together with other big emerging countries like India, Indonesia, Russia, Brazil, Turkey, and so on, are realities that will not go away, even if EU really would like that to happen. EU is an important economic world power but as it manages its international policy, particularly its blind submission to the US, it is relegated to be a loser (and political dwarf).
It doesn’t have to be so. EU can still play an important and positive role in the multipolar world, particularly by helping to establish a new world order, which would benefit the EU countries and their citizens. Mutually beneficial relations with China and different emerging regional powers are crucial in this context. Not submission, mutually beneficial agreements.
But with the leaders it has now, EU’s future doesn’t look bright.
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If anybody thinks that Kaja Kallas is the right person for the position as EU’s Foreign Policy Chief, watch this video from September 2025, where she says: ‘This is the battle of narratives for the Global South, and all the rest of the world, really. I was in an ASEAN meeting and one thing what was interesting you know that Russia was addressing China like "You and uh and like Russia and China, We uh you know fought the Second World War. We won the Second World War. We won the Nazis". And I was like, "Okay, that is something new". But then you can see first you can, you know, if you know history then you know it raises a lot of question marks in your head. But you know, I can tell you nowadays people don't really read and remember history that much.’ Of course, it is obvious that she is quite dumb (and has probably never read a serious history book) so it would be easy to simply ignore her, but, come on, she is the EU’s top diplomat! The sad thing is that she is unfortunately not alone in this abysmal incompetence. There is a reason why so many people around the world laugh at the European ‘leadership’. According to former Italian Ambassador Marco Carnelos, the opinion displayed by Kallas ‘has become, sadly, essential to the résumé of any official who aspires to a successful career within the EU's institutions’.
Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman observed that Kallas is ‘critically uneducated’. China's foreign ministry responded to her outburst saying: ‘The statement made by the relevant EU official is full of ideological bias and lacks basic historical common sense, and blatantly stokes rivalry and confrontation. This is disrespectful to the history of WW2 and undermines the EU's own interests. It's preposterous and irresponsible.’
Yes, unfortunately.
