EU defence white paper says China’s military action risks ‘major disruption’ for Europe
Paper warns geopolitical shifts are something ‘we have been warned about many times but is now happening faster than many had anticipated’
In its “White Paper for European Defence – Readiness 2030” published on Wednesday, the EU looks at ways to close critical capability gaps and build a strong base to rearm member states against threats from the war in Ukraine and other global challenges.
The white paper said Europe was facing an “acute and growing threat” – including the Ukraine war, which it said was “fundamental” to the future of Europe as a whole, and growing security issues in its region and beyond – that required it to rearm itself.
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It said threats included strategic competition in flashpoints from “the Arctic to the Baltic to the Middle East and North Africa” as well as transnational challenges, such as rapid technological change, migration and climate change.
As well as Russian military threats, China’s increasing military actions in the Indo-Pacific were contributing to the “deteriorating strategic context”, the paper said.
The security implications of the rise of China were “similarly strategic in nature” with challenges rooted in Beijing’s entirely different “authoritarian and non-democratic” system of government to the EU, the white paper said. It said Beijing’s approach to trade, investment and technology sought to “achieve primacy, and in some cases supremacy”.
“Authoritarian states like China increasingly seek to assert their authority and control in our economy and society. Traditional allies and partners, such as the United States, are also changing their focus away from Europe to other regions of the world,” the white paper said. “This is something that we have been warned about many times but is now happening faster than many had anticipated.”
While Beijing is a key trading partner for the EU, its increased defence spending is helping to rapidly expand its military capabilities, “significantly altering the strategic balance in the Indo-Pacific” and “intensifying its political, economic, military, cyber and cognitive measures to coerce Taiwan”.