With the transatlantic alliance on life support, a new debate is raging in Europe about whether it should decouple from the United States.
Sparked by US President Donald Trump’s move to cut aid and intelligence-sharing with Ukraine, influential voices have questioned whether depending on the US for security, weaponry or information is a risk to be avoided.
The sudden geopolitical shock led many to speculate that Europe’s relations with China may receive a sudden boost – an outlook that is unlikely to change significantly in the wake of Trump’s apparent flip-flop this week on his Ukraine policy.
Do you have questions about the biggest topics and trends from around the world? Get the answers with SCMP Knowledge, our new platform of curated content with explainers, FAQs, analyses and infographics brought to you by our award-winning team.
But while EU leaders have voiced a willingness to improve ailing ties to Beijing, its squadrons of bureaucrats are pushing ahead with long-planned moves to cut what they see as dangerous dependencies on Chinese supplies.
Through a series of policy moves and public comments in recent days, it appears that Brussels’ plans to de-risk from China are moving forward – even as it faces calls to do the same with Washington.
For some, it has raised a question that would have seemed implausible just six months earlier: must Europe de-risk from both of the world’s economic superpowers at once?
After American space technology company Maxar was reported to have cut Kyiv’s access to commercially available satellite imagery, the former leader of Estonia was among those calling for a severing in transatlantic dependencies.
“Attention: European Commission. Time to de-risk and decouple. And fast,” wrote Toomas Hendrik Ilves in a post on social media, using language that just months earlier could have been assumed to refer to China.
In private meetings with American diplomats in Brussels, Europeans have been telling them about their plans to “de-risk” from Washington, saying “the way you’re behaving, it’s a vulnerability to rely on you”, according to an official involved in such talks.
Hoping to capitalise, Chinese diplomats have embarked on a charm offensive across Europe, softening their language and offering to cooperate in general terms without making specific offers.
Their advances may have been encouraged by European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen’s softer language on Beijing this year.
On two occasions, she voiced openness to “deepening trade and investment ties”, even as she warned of a pending “China shock 2.0”.
In recent days, the German official has dampened speculation that the bloc may also need to de-risk its ties with Washington, notwithstanding the fact that she is reported to have said privately it was clear now that Europe was on its own.
“It’s a completely different relationship with the United States than we have with China,” she said, adding that it was a “clear no” regarding de-risking from Washington.
In the background, meanwhile, her team of bureaucrats has been beavering away at trade and industrial policy moves to reduce dependencies on China.
“We need to engage [China] in a discussion on the externalities of the state capitalist economic system – the overcapacity issue that needs to be addressed at root,” said Sabine Weyand, the EU’s director general for trade, at an event in Brussels last week.
The message was clear: just because Trump has savaged the EU-US alliance, it does not mean Europe’s issues with China disappear.
While the EU has “safeguards or specific policies” to try to tackle industrial overcapacity in the Chinese economy, “what we really need is that China itself realises that they have a problem and does something about it”.
“They need to understand that they are currently very much presenting themselves as the poster child of the WTO and the multilateral system,” Weyand added. “But of course they’re defenders of the status quo that does not capture their non-market policies.”
In policy terms as well, the commission has been pressing ahead with efforts to de-risk. On Tuesday, it proposed a Critical Medicines Act, designed to wean Europe off reliance on pharmaceutical products from China and India that are considered to be risky.
According to the Critical Medicines Alliance, an EU-sponsored group, the Asian giants account for 60 to 80 per cent of the active pharmaceutical ingredients sold in Europe, sparking fears of choke points in supply, or even weaponised dependencies.
“This is about health security, it’s about economic security and it’s about the EU’s overall security,” said a senior EU official on the new proposal.
Several dialogues have been launched with industries seen in Europe to be prone to Chinese overcapacity, including steel and aluminium, chemicals and automotive sector.
With Trump expected to continue raising tariffs on Chinese imports, there are fears in Europe that more cut-price goods will land at the continent’s ports.
Rather than a broad overcapacity instrument, the commission is anticipated to extend “buy European” provisions increasingly seen in cleantech sectors to other industrial verticals, as it looks to fend off cheaper Chinese competitors that it claims are unfairly subsidised.
On Tuesday, it released new guidelines around state aid provisions for its Clean Industrial Deal, an umbrella term for many individual policies designed to cut dependencies and bolster local industry at the expense of competition from China and others.
A priority listed in Tuesday’s newly published rules is “providing the right conditions for companies to grow, compete and lead worldwide as well as to address distortions caused by foreign subsidies”.
These issues will all be on the table when EU trade and economic security chief Maros Sefcovic travels to Beijing this month.
Speaking to journalists on Monday, the Slovakian official said there would be no deal with Trump to stave off US tariffs on EU steel and aluminium slated to enter force on Wednesday.
“I travelled to the US last month. I was seeking constructive dialogue to avoid the unnecessary pain of measures and countermeasures,” he said. “But in the end, one hand cannot clap. The US administration does not seem to be engaging to make a deal.”
EU trade officials have been coming up with a precise list of demands for Sefcovic to bring to China that could help foster goodwill in the ailing relationship.
One area of cooperation could be Chinese investment in Europe’s electric vehicle and battery sectors.
Eyeing factories and jobs, member states such as Italy and Spain have been lobbying for a reset in ties with Beijing, while France and Hungary have also been mooted destinations for further investments.
The stunning decline of Tesla sales in Europe amid billionaire owner Elon Musk’s close ties with Trump could offer an opening to its Chinese competitors.
According to the Car Scoops news site, Tesla’s sales in Norway collapsed 44.4 per cent in the first two months of 2025, even as the EV industry grew 53.4 per cent.
And in Germany, new government data showed Tesla sales there plunging by 59.5 per cent in January and 76.3 per cent in February.
“We need to handle that intelligently because there is an interest in technology transfer from Chinese companies, especially in the battery field,” Weyand said, laying out the conditions under which the EU would welcome Chinese investment.
“We are not interested in investments that are simple assembly ... without added value and without technology transfer,” she added. “We have instruments to foster that outcome and that is something that needs to be discussed elsewhere [with] the Chinese and possibly our member states.”
More from South China Morning Post:
- Russian goods seizures cause havoc on China-Europe rail link: ‘big impact’
- Trump to buy a Tesla in show of support for Musk
- European Parliament removes curbs on lawmaker meetings with China
- ‘Next-level urgency’: EU leaders spring into action as reality of US pivot to Russia hits
- Your best friend has abandoned you: inside China’s latest EU charm offensive
For the latest news from the South China Morning Post download our mobile app. Copyright 2025.
