Two speeches by the EU Commission President, Ursula Von de Leyen in March and April 2023, set out the EU’s policy towards China. In late April, the UK Foreign Secretary set out the UK’s emerging strategy and on the same day earlier this month, a UK Government Committee released a report which heavily criticized the UK’s dealings with China and the German Government released its long-awaited (and much-redrafted) China Strategy. 

This blog looks at similarities between the three approaches and what conclusions we might draw about the implications.

EU China Strategy

The EU first labelled China a systemic rival in 2019.  Since then, the European Commission has promoted the idea of “de-risking” the bloc’s most sensitive economic sectors to limit their dependence on China.

In a powerful speech in March 2023 Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen set out the need for the EU to develop its China Strategy.  The new strategy was needed because of what she described as the hardening of China’s overall strategic posture, matched by human rights abuses at home and an increasingly assertive stance in Asia. She was careful to note that the EU’s position on China would depend on how China interacts with ‘Putin’s war’ and how China meets international human rights obligations.  President Von der Leyen labelled as deliberate Chinese policies of disinformation and economic and trade coercion, saying they were used to target ‘countries to ensure they comply and conform’.

The tone of President Von der Leyen’s speech was set against the EU’s assessment that a newly assertive China was moving from an era of ‘reform and opening’ to one of ‘security and control’ whose purpose was ‘a systemic change of the international order [to place] China at its centre’.  In her speech, The Commission President noted that ‘all companies in China…are…obliged … to assist state intelligence-gathering operations and to keep it secret’. President Von der Leyen concluded that Chinese focus on military, tech and economic security would increasingly trump the appeal of free markets and open trade.

However, President Von de Leyen made clear that the EU did not seek to ‘cut economic, societal, political or scientific ties’, but rather to ‘rebalance the relationship on the basis of transparency, predictability and reciprocity.’ Using language reminiscent of President Macron’s call for the EU to seek greater ‘strategic autonomy’, President Von der Leyen argued that the new relationship would require the EU’s economy and industry to be more competitive and resilient in the cyber and maritime, space and digital, defence, innovation, health, digital and clean-tech sectors. President Von der Leyen pointed to the Net-Zero Industry and the Critical Raw Materials Acts as examples of the EU’s determination to respond to Chinese domination of these critical sectors.