Europe’s China Strategy Remains Undefined as Pressure Builds

This month alone, Europe has threatened China with a trade “kill switch,” criticised it in parliamentary debates, dispatched its trade commissioner on a heavily publicised trip to Beijing, and unveiled three new economic-security instruments.

Taken together, these moves exposed a European Union that still lacks a clear China strategy, a hierarchy of priorities, and agreement on what it seeks from Beijing or what it is willing to offer in return.

China has built its approach to Europe around that vacuum. Its strategy rewards patience: apply pressure, wait for Brussels to respond, then offer limited concessions on Beijing’s terms. European leaders portray the new instruments as proof that they can exert control, while Beijing treats each measure as further evidence of Europe’s willingness to endure pressure. China appears to understand Europe’s limits better than Brussels does.

Berlin and Paris helped set the recent course. On 5 October, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and French President Emmanuel Macron called for a “kill switch” capable of cutting a country’s access to the EU single market.

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