The EU Might Be Overdoing Its Hawkish Stance on China

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Charles Michel will face tense talks over trade and security when they meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping in early December. Yet in absorbing these U.S. perspective toward China’s rise as a global power, European policymakers are ignoring weaknesses within China’s political economy that could also generate risks for the EU and its partners. It is difficult to pin down the exact point at which the current lack of trust between the EU and China become so pervasive. Disputes over the textile and steel industries in the 1990s and 2000s, for instance, were hashed out amicably. And growing pressure to remove Chinese equipment entirely from the infrastructure needed for European 5G mobile networks marks a culmination of distrust toward China that did not seem inevitable as late as 2015.