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