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French President Emmanuel Macron gestures during a press conference at the Europe Day ceremony and the Future of Europe conference at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, on May 9. Photo AFP
Opinion
Robert Williams and Moritz Rudolf
Robert Williams and Moritz Rudolf

The EU can play a crucial role in averting armed conflict between US and China

  • The European Union may be unwilling to join the United States in taking a hard stance against China, but it can serve as an intermediary
  • A de-escalation of US-China tensions is far from guaranteed, but the EU’s record of fostering negotiations between rival powers puts it in an ideal position to do so again
European countries are currently divided over whether to join US President Joe Biden’s diplomatic boycott of the Winter Olympics in Beijing. The episode underscores that, when it comes to dealing with China, Europe and the US truly are an ocean apart.
Most European governments cannot reconcile their interests with the vision of a US-led coalition of democracies standing up to the world’s autocracies, and officials balk at pursuing a China policy focused on containment, under the guise of competition.

While the European Union wants to deepen transatlantic cooperation, there is no consensus on how to do so without alienating China or undermining the very international system it aims to defend. Nor are European governments convinced of America’s reliability as a partner.

Biden might value the transatlantic relationship, but his predecessor, Donald Trump, did not. Who is to say what the next US president – possibly Trump himself – will stand for? This doubt is a key motivation behind the EU’s effort to operationalise its vision of “strategic autonomy”.

To be sure, there is scope for transatlantic collaboration on China. In fact, efforts to advance such cooperation are already in motion, in the form of the US-EU Dialogue on China and the US-EU Trade and Technology Council.

Joint action to counter China’s anticompetitive trade practices, export and investment restrictions in response to China’s human-rights abuses, and a push for high standards for overseas infrastructure projects should be welcomed.

But the current US-EU agenda on China might be too ambitious. Clearer prioritisation is needed to maximise the benefits of coordination.

Furthermore, differing legal systems and threat perceptions in the US and Europe will make progress in key areas – such as carbon taxes, antitrust policy, or responses to Chinese disinformation campaigns – painfully slow.

The prospects for meaningful military and security cooperation are especially limited. While European countries have made some symbolic moves – for example, the German warship Bayern recently demonstrated the right to free passage in the South China Sea – they are wary of going much further.
The German Navy’s Bayern frigate is seen at Changi Naval Base in Singapore on December 21, as part of Germany’s strategic Indo-Pacific presence. Photo: Bloomberg

This is the case even for France, the only European country with a significant military presence in the Indo-Pacific.

As French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian recently explained, “We do not underestimate the depth of competition with China, which can be ferocious, and the need for a constant evaluation of risks, but we try to avoid the militarisation of our strategy to allow us to include – respectful of their sovereignty – all interested countries.”

The communication failures surrounding the Aukus defence agreement between Australia, the United Kingdom and the US – a deal that blindsided France, which lost a major defence contract – further underscore the limits of US-Europe military cooperation in the Indo-Pacific.
But transatlantic cooperation is hardly the only way Europe can influence the US-China relationship – and mitigate the risks that its rapid deterioration implies.
Strategists are scrambling to draw lessons from history and devise an approach that enables the two sides to compete without catastrophe, particularly armed conflict. Europe can help here.

The EU should consider launching a diplomatic initiative reminiscent of the Helsinki Process, credited with reducing tensions between the Soviet and Western blocs in the 1970s. Through such a process, Europe could broker agreements to promote de-escalation, risk reduction and crisis management.

Europe’s limited capacity to project military power in the Indo-Pacific could be an asset in this context, as it bolsters European actors’ credibility as trusted intermediaries. Compared to more direct stakeholders, the EU is better positioned to mediate thorny issues such as Taiwan and the South China Sea.

No one should underestimate the difficulty of establishing rules of the road that are robust enough to avert conflict. But Europe has a comparative advantage in this area – one that it has demonstrated in the past.

How ‘three Cs’ are driving US, China further apart and closer to conflict

For example, the European Commission and European countries played a central role in delivering multilateral export-control regimes, such as the Nuclear Suppliers Group and the Wassenaar Arrangement.

An EU-led de-escalation initiative in the Indo-Pacific is far from a sure thing. But it would align with the EU’s professed goal of pursuing an inclusive approach to the region that strengthens the rules-based international order.

More important, it offers the best chance of averting war between great powers. Is that not why the EU was created?

Robert Williams, a senior research scholar and lecturer at Yale Law School, is executive director of Yale Law School’s Paul Tsai China Centre. Moritz Rudolf is a postdoctoral fellow at Yale Law School’s Paul Tsai China Centre. Copyright: Project Syndicate
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