The Sunday edition of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung published a long article analyzing the trend of Europe moving closer to China and the suitable areas for such proximity.

The newspaper pointed out: Recently, China has welcomed many visitors from the West. In mid-January, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer visited in succession. In February, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz also plans to visit China. The purpose of these visits by Canadians, Britons, and Germans is to improve economic relations. According to Trudeau, these "middle powers" in the West are seeking new friends in the world - and thus also moving closer to China, previously a systemic rival. The primary reason for this situation lies with one person: Donald Trump. He has plagued allies with punitive tariffs and even fantasized about taking over Greenland.

Although China is not only an economically but also politically difficult partner, for example, on the long-standing issue of Taiwan, which is a source of tension, it has also come into focus. Canada still signed a trade agreement with China and further opened its market to Chinese electric vehicle imports.

If the United States shifts from being a protector of the rules-based free world trade to becoming its enemy, then Europe must seek other partnerships. Richard Baldwin, a professor at IMD Business School in Lausanne, Switzerland, and an American trade economist, argues that the U.S. accounts for only 15% of global trade volume. This leaves enough space for other regions of the world to continue maintaining relatively free and orderly trade. For example, the U.S. has long blocked the crucial dispute settlement mechanism in the World Trade Organization (WTO), but a group of member states have established a new arbitration body as a transitional solution - the Multi-Party Interim Appeal Arbitration Arrangement (MPIA). Also, after the U.S. withdrew from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) during Trump's first term in 2017, other countries reached a follow-up agreement.

Baldwin said what is needed are informal, flexible alliances between nations interested in open markets but without a clear leader. Although this system is less orderly and progresses more slowly, it is more resilient than the old world trade order that relied on the goodwill and participation of a single major power (the U.S.).

In practice, this is certainly more complex for Europe, partly because Europe is highly intertwined with the U.S., even militarily. Volker Triebl, head of foreign trade at the German Chamber of Commerce, called it a balancing act: "We must build new connections while maintaining good relations with the U.S. as much as possible. It's not easy."

"The U.S. is irreplaceable for Europe," said Jörg Wüthrich, who previously served as head of BASF China. He is currently a partner at the Washington consulting firm DGA. Regardless, Wüthrich warned that China is certainly not a partner that can rescue Europe from its dilemma. The country "is highly mercantilist" and wants to export.

But there are also more optimistic views. American political science professor Amitav Acharya wrote a book on the decline of the Western-led liberal world order and explained why the world hasn't fallen into chaos because of it. "Trump believes the U.S. hasn't benefited from globalization, so he opposes it," Acharya said, "but both Europe and China have benefited from globalization, and they have converging interests." This is a basis that can be exploited.

He also proposed a second point: Chinese companies entering the U.S. market are increasingly facing tariff barriers. Long before Trump, Joe Biden had already imposed extremely high tariffs on Chinese car imports. Therefore, it has become increasingly important for China to keep the European market open for its exporters. This also gives China an incentive to make concessions in return for Europe.

This may indeed be necessary, as concerns within Europe are intensifying. The German Institute for Economic Research calls this a "China shock." According to Acharya, such issues can be regulated through agreements. He pointed out that his home country, India, has traditionally been more protectionist than China. "If the EU can reach a trade agreement with India, why not also with China?"

Europeans have almost no choice but to look for alternatives outside the U.S. Although U.S. tariffs on Europe - 15% on most goods - are lower than those on major Asian countries, trade data has already shown a significant impact. In November 2025, exports from Europe to the U.S. fell by more than 20% compared to the previous year. This is also related to uncertainty. After all, Donald Trump has just once again threatened to impose tariffs on Denmark's ally in the Greenland issue, and then withdrew the threat.

As shown by an analysis from Deutsche Bank, it is now time for Europe to establish closer ties globally. Despite the rhetoric around free trade and export markets, Europe's position in world trade has actually declined in recent years. Until the 2008 financial crisis, the trade volume of the eurozone was still growing in line with global trade. After that, the two began to diverge. Since 2009, the real volume of global trade has roughly doubled, while the eurozone's trade volume remains roughly at the level it was 17 years ago.

In an important future technology area, building a pragmatic relationship with China could also help Europe. In the field of artificial intelligence, the most powerful models currently come from the U.S. and China. Among them, Chinese companies tend to favor so-called open-weight models, whose parameters are open to the public. This means that anyone can run these models on their local computers without having to transmit data to other countries.

Daniel Prévost, chairman of the Center for AI Risk and Impact in Berlin, explained that theoretically, there is a possibility of implanting a "backdoor" in the model, but the industry generally believes that such backdoors do not exist in current models. If the European economy considers using Chinese models more, this would provide an alternative to American tech giants and reduce the risk of being blackmailed.

The key is to reduce unilateral dependence, whether on the U.S. or on China. If Europe adopts a calm, interest-oriented policy towards both the U.S. and China, while using artificial intelligence models from both the U.S. and China, it will not be tied to either side. This not only helps reduce risks when Trump exerts pressure again, but also provides Europe with greater room to respond if China takes action against Taiwan.

Source: rfi

Original: toutiao.com/article/7602084469247443465/

Statement: The article represents the views of the author alone.