The problem with China is that it has taken a hostile non-cooperative approach, ie it’s acting in bad faith. This is evidenced by its diplomatic failures with the region and with the world. The CCP is using economic leverage to coerce smaller players in the global system. The US has its hands tied here, there really are no other options geopolitically.
I live in Europe as well, and sometimes it feels like European leadership is extremely confused: EU is a shitshow that nobody seems to be able to lead (just look at how long it took for agreeing on debt mutualization/Eurobond, Brexit, VDL apologizing to Italy, etc), Germany working with Russia on Nord stream 2 after its actions in Ukraine, Sweden pretending like the lax virus approach has nothing to do with its hyper leveraged banks and heavily indebted households, list goes on... and all we can do is entertain ourselves by making fun of Trump. We are a joke, we can’t even keep our union together. We can’t even pay for our military because daddy America has to foot the bill and if they don’t our European leaders start whining about lack of US leadership.
The US Fed had enough vision to extend the dollar swap lines to more central banks including the Swedish central bank. For the ECB there is a permanent arrangement. Despite the “tough love“ we Europeans are getting on trade from the US, ultimately Europe will soon enough realize the US is its best ally.
We just want freedom and fair economic practices. We won’t get it if we let China play communist game theory with the only planet we have.
It's true that Trump is strategically blundering by being overly aggressive with the Europeans, however their economic system is under greater threat from China than the US is. The EU and Eurozone countries openly support what the US is doing in confronting China, even if they have their own disputes with the US on trade.
Most of Europe plainly has even more at stake in dealing with China than the US does. The greater European region is far weaker than the US as a whole (half the GDP per capita, far less wealth, less economic growth, greater economic stagnation the past 10-20 years), both economically and militarily. China has in recent years demonstrated its ability to directly purchase votes and influence among weaker European nations. China is an advancing superpower that is pursuing both tech and industrial dominance. Europe has no tech dominance for China to plunder or compete with, however it does have a large amount of high-skill, advanced manufacturing in Western Europe. China wants to own that. What's left of Western Europe's economy if they do?
Most of Germany's economy is built on advanced manufacturing and an extreme level of exports (~32% of its economy is exports), resulting in the world's largest national trade surplus. China's goal is to move up the development ladder and to own advanced manufacturing. If China has its way, Germany will be gutted. Most of Europe's interests on China are aligned with the US. The two can likely manage to keep US-Europe trade issues separate from the need to also deal with China.
US-EU ties are a much deeper than what the current US president has stirred up. What an embarrassment. Give 8 months and perhaps have a new president and things may turn for the better. I vividly recall the support and warm of the people of Europe, their messages and prayers during the 9/11 attack.
When we must cooperate with others, we must look for common principles, underlying foundation of a country. China can become a super power bully around other countries into a dystopian world. Is that what we want in Germany? German companies having to apologize to the CCP for offending them?
My theory around the election of Trump through a number of incidents that lead up to it - Russian objectives to dismantle US-EU, Chinese objectives to bankcrupt US by paying off their executives to move the factories to China, Democrats vs Republicans polarization and Trump dropping the American credibility. It is sad. Remember, Trump didn't win popular vote. When middle America is bankrupt, there is no food on the table, drug use is through the roof - they will want some change in Washington, Trump gets elected. I don't want my kids to grow up to a world where democracy is dying, western countries are infighting and there is an increasing risk of complete and utter lack of freedom, loss of privacy and obsolence of liberty.
What a sad world to be in. China can be amazing super power if it suddenly got rid of CCP and had an open minded democracy, inspiring and building a model of how other nations can follow. Instead, we are seeing a regression and nationalism rising around the world. Same thing in India.
There are a lot of things we can do, but that requires the EU, the US and China's neighbors to work together. It requires US to have a vision for countering China's growing sphere of influence. Unfortunately, the US is content to let China grow into the void that the US has left as it abdicates its role as superpower. The EU isn't fit to function as a counterweight to China.
I say all this as an EU citizen. For all its faults, the US is the one ally we have that could possibly coordinate an appropriate response (no, not military - financial, political and social, but also military if need be) and it's a tragedy that the US is just ... giving up.
China is highly dependent on the EU and the US for trade. The EU is the biggest trading bloc in the world. The EU has a lot of leverage.
The problem is that China trivially buys off a single member state to nix things like this from happening, as the EU must agree unanimously on these matters.
blowing up the norstrom, decoupling russia from gas, maintaining USD hegemony, selling natural gas for 5x the price, forcing EU to join them in war, forcing EU to sanction China...
remember the EUR was envisioned when the gold standard was dropped by USD because the Europeans knew the USD would become the defacto global standard which is bad for their economy.
EU is a beautiful concept. Unfortunately they are unable to make their own independent decision and will always be a gutless spineless laptop to American military industrial complex.
Only this time taking on Russia and China at same time is going to be a bigger bite than they can chew. EU is already getting closer to China and US doesnt like this one bit.
There are quite a handful of countries standing up against the CCP right now. Those with official diplomatic relationship with Taiwan, for example. I get your point though; many European leaders should feel bad (but they don’t, which is the problem).
I don't think you understand, this is geopolitics. This is the clash of ideologies. This is democracies vs dictatorships. This is market economy vs state controlled industries. This is EU, US, Japan, Australia, Canada, UK, Taiwan, India, South Korea vs China, Russia, Turkey, Iran, North Korea.
Those that say EU will side with China and go against US, don't know how geopolitics work. And haven't been paying attention to Europe standing up to China these past few weeks.
Europe has done pretty much everything the US wants, from spying on our citizens to foreign companies paying little to no tax. All you hear these days is how lame Europe is because we don't have a Facebook and how we should all move to the overpriced small town of SV. China doesn't only have a Facebook, it has a Google, an Amazon and an Uber. Which are in many ways surpassing their US counterparts. Since when was trade ever fair? I think the bigger thing here is just that China isn't in the US sphere of influence in terms of politics, but also in terms of culture and it's treating them quite well.
Thats such a cop-out, the US doesn't respect the one china policy any differently to the EU. And no one is threatening China in anyone shape or form. Your argument holds as much weight as Russia using NATO as an excuse.
China is run by an authoritarian extreme nationalistic government that tortures its citizen that dare to critise it. That is widely known. Europe will stay a close ally with the USA and the cooperation will resume to normality once the USA has recovered from its recent personality cult and government running on lies.
If europe sides with China, they will eventually be cutoff like what is happening with China. It will take a couple of decades and I don't see it turning around to go back at this point.
The question for Europeans will be which market they prefer to do business in. Are you so sure you prefer your current choices? Does your country have memories from Stalin and Lenin? That's the type of communism you are getting with CCP with a huge helping of corporate espionage, manipulation, and double standards.
The world needs to start bullying China. I am sickened by how weak the EU is with china. They care only about profits. We need to start treating China like we treat Russia. They are a serious threat to the rest of the world environmentally, politically, and militarily.
I don't understand the end game of what their current system is trying to achieve. I think they're trying to avoid splitting / division while hitting economic quotas (which they can't do without international commerce!), to spite everything else. It feels reduced to that.
I live in Europe as well, and sometimes it feels like European leadership is extremely confused: EU is a shitshow that nobody seems to be able to lead (just look at how long it took for agreeing on debt mutualization/Eurobond, Brexit, VDL apologizing to Italy, etc), Germany working with Russia on Nord stream 2 after its actions in Ukraine, Sweden pretending like the lax virus approach has nothing to do with its hyper leveraged banks and heavily indebted households, list goes on... and all we can do is entertain ourselves by making fun of Trump. We are a joke, we can’t even keep our union together. We can’t even pay for our military because daddy America has to foot the bill and if they don’t our European leaders start whining about lack of US leadership.
The US Fed had enough vision to extend the dollar swap lines to more central banks including the Swedish central bank. For the ECB there is a permanent arrangement. Despite the “tough love“ we Europeans are getting on trade from the US, ultimately Europe will soon enough realize the US is its best ally.
We just want freedom and fair economic practices. We won’t get it if we let China play communist game theory with the only planet we have.
reply