In theory, the “systemic rival” strategy should have found better purchase with the post-Trump administration of Joe Biden, which seems obsessed with Cold War bloc politics.
But in reality, with Europe facing a hot war (in Ukraine), a brewing cold war (between the US and China) and a potential crisis in the Taiwan Strait that could disrupt world trade and the economy, the “systemic rival” strategy has become totally unsustainable. It contributes to neither regional stability nor world peace.
From Trump’s trade wars on both China and the EU, to Biden’s efforts to decouple from China and wage a new cold war, the EU has suffered, pushed into a corner where it faces difficult decisions between maintaining its strategic autonomy and hewing to a common transatlantic China policy – one that is increasingly headed for a major confrontation.
This is exactly what Macron pointed out following his Beijing trip. His allusion to an unhealthy, even dangerous, trend in transatlantic relations is nothing new, and the view perfectly matches the Gallic tradition in France. But the timing and clarity of his views were a major shock to many European politicians who have made new careers out of bashing China in recent years.
The bottom line is, will the EU sacrifice everything with China to jump on the American bandwagon? Will the EU mobilise its military might to help Taiwan fight off mainland forces in case of an attack? Does the EU really comprehend the grave danger of mishandling the Taiwan question to begin with?
Fortunately, while the EU stands with the US in opposing any unilateral change to the status quo in Taiwan, no one – not even the most devoted advocates of China as a “systemic rival” such as German foreign minister Annalena Baerbock, and even von der Leyen – is willing to praise America’s China policy of decoupling and confrontation.
02:36
French and EU leaders urge China to ‘bring Russia to its senses’ and stop invasion of Ukraine
The “systemic rival” approach pleases no one. In perhaps trying to offer something to an American president who does not care and another president who has pushed too far, the EU has dug itself a hole it does not know how to get out of.
For the EU to be great again, and to regain its voice on the world stage, it will have no choice but to firmly maintain its policy of strategic autonomy. Neither China nor the rest of the world would be able to take seriously an EU that becomes a vassal of the US, a development Macron has spoken sharply against.
And if Macron and Chinese President Xi Jinping manage to broker a ceasefire in Ukraine, the EU strategy of systemic rivalry will surely be consigned to the dust heap of history – a curio of EU incompetence in foreign policymaking.
Lanxin Xiang is founder of PN Associates Strategic Consultancy, and a distinguished fellow at the Stimson Center
