cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/2411873
China and the European Union are unlikely to become close allies quickly, analysts say, even as U.S. President Donald Trump's tariffs sour relations between the world's largest economy and both its transatlantic allies and Beijing.
"I don't see the EU and China uniting against the US," Max Bergmann, director of the Europe, Russia, and Eurasia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) said.
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"I think there will be interest on both sides but deep practical constraints for both. Unless China is willing to make some big concessions, I struggle to see the EU uniting behind a strategy of deeper engagement."
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The EU and China have a fractious relationship. While China is one of the EU's biggest trading partners besides the U.S., economic relations between the two have also historically been characterized by investigations and tit-for-tat measures linked to trade.
The EU has long alleged that Beijing subsidizes key sectors such as electric vehicles, batteries and steel and aluminum in a way that is harmful to global markets and competitiveness. Last year, the EU hit China with tariffs on electric vehicles, as a result.
... And it is not only trade that is causing tensions in the EU-China relationship, Carsten Nickel, managing director at Teneo, [said].
He added that there are "fundamental differences" between the two "regardless of what is going on with the U.S."
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"That has to do with unresolved questions around overcapacity in China. It has to do with ongoing misgivings in the European Parliament, especially regarding the human rights situation, and it has to do with concerns over China's support for for Russia and Ukraine," he explained.
Ian Bremmer, founder and president of the Eurasia group, also pointed out that there is a "deep" European mistrust toward China in areas like intellectual property and technological surveillance, as well as industrial policy.
This "doesn't go away with the United States becoming an adversary."
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"I think it's pretty clear that that that doesn't that that doesn't mean that the the the underlying challenges in the European relationship with China are gone overnight," he added.
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Eurasia Group's Emre Peker and Mujtaba Rahman echoed this idea in a Thursday note.
"Trade diversions as the US-China tariff fight escalates will prompt the European Commission to swiftly deploy safeguard measures to prevent China—and other countries—from dumping their goods on the EU market," they said.
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European policymakers will use "softer rhetoric" towards China to avoid triggering a trade war on two fronts. "But this is highly unlikely to translate into Brussels-Beijing cooperation against Washington," they concluded.