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Opinion | Why Brussels should listen to Europe’s CEOs who want closer China ties
Amid a hail of US tariffs, a strong showing of CEOs from Europe and UK at China Development Forum reflects a desire to stay invested in China
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Stronger ties between the European Union and China are being pursued by European business interests while at the same time being cooled by the European Commission. The outcome of this tension will materially shape the new global trading order in the era of US President Donald Trump and beyond.
There has been a warming in EU-China relations amid the aftershocks of the Trump administration’s rejection of European interests and its imposition of aggressive trade protectionism against Europe and China alike. But the European Commission’s deputy director general for trade, Maria Martin-Prat, recently poured cold water on the idea of better ties with Beijing, calling it “simplistic” thinking and referring back to the EU policy of “de-risking” from China.
Yet the EU position on China no longer seems to make sense in the context of demonstrable risks that the United States is becoming an aggressor and bad-faith actor against European interests.
Behind this curious situation may be Brussels’ fear of the US, combined with distress over the loss of the post-Cold-War era of Anglo, US and EU ascendancy. Such anxiousness is clearly at the forefront of European leaders’ thinking, more so than the risks of more aggressively building countervailing ties with a willing China.
With the EU under full attack economically and strategically from Trump and his inner circle, the European Commission’s patience with the US is increasingly untenable.
Martin-Prat’s statements in Brussels last week came after the first ever meeting in Beijing between the European Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong (EuroCham) – a key European private-sector trade group – and Xia Baolong, director of the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office. This unusual meeting was clearly arranged for the optics – for China to repeat its overtures to the EU, but equally for EuroCham to send a message that business, at least, is willing to respond constructively to these signals.
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