Macroscope | Will Quad and Aukus alliances drive Europe into China’s arms?
- With bilateral trade growing and unstable geopolitics elsewhere, China and Europe have good reason to make common cause
- The US, Japan, Britain, Australia and India tying their fortunes to the Indo-Pacific could give Brussels the political impetus to seek closer cooperation with Beijing
Now that the Quad and Aukus gambits have been employed by the United States and its partners in the global political-economic chess game, who will make the next move? Neither China nor Europe will concede checkmate by rivals and might instead find common cause in a joint strategy.
As the focus of the Quad and Aukus – united by a commitment to shared values, rather than economic rationale – shifts to the Indo-Pacific region, the case for economic unity among contiguous nations stretching from China to western Europe grows stronger. The fact that two independent, offshore islands in Britain and Japan have now tied their fortunes to the Indo-Pacific only strengthens this logic.
Japan never quite fit into Eurasia, at least in the post-war years, because of its insular geographic situation and its alliance with the US. Britain has scorned continental Europe after Brexit and through its submarine deal with the US and Australia at France’s expense.
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