At a political talk show on Shanghai Media Group, a law student shouted that Europe was losing its global relevance and asked whether European elites and publics realized it. The outburst reflects a common narrative in China: that Europe is hamstrung by slow growth, a dependent foreign policy and limited defense capabilities, still deferential to Washington and unable to halt a war unfolding on its doorstep in Ukraine.
The return of Donald Trump to the US presidency in January 2025 has deepened doubts about transatlantic unity. Beijing has seized on American unpredictability — from provocative remarks about territory to public questioning of NATO cohesion after European refusals to join a US-led action against Iran — as evidence that Washington’s leadership is less reliable than before.
Chinese leaders interpret the widening rift as an opening. They envision a multipolar world in which Beijing works with Russia and other states outside the US orbit, while also hoping Europe might become an independent pole. The calculation is straightforward: the UK and France hold permanent UN Security Council vetoes; the EU single market remains an important destination for Chinese exports; and Europe possesses advanced technologies that complement China’s mass-manufacturing capacities. In Beijing’s view, political space between Washington and European capitals creates an opportunity to cultivate Brussels and other influential European actors.
At a mid-April forum in Shanghai, Ding Chun, chair of the Shanghai Institute for European Studies and a Fudan University professor, argued that the United States long cemented its influence through institutions such as the IMF and World Bank, shaping a “Washington Consensus” across regions. But Ding said the old dynamics are eroding: younger Europeans are disenchanted with traditional politics and social media has made electoral outcomes harder to predict.
China is already pressing for a reshaped global order. During the April 29 visit to Beijing by Annalena Baerbock — then president of the UN General Assembly and previously Germany’s foreign minister — Foreign Minister Wang Yi used the meeting to push for UN institutional reform and a more multipolar governance model. Wang told Baerbock that China welcomed her continued leadership, and the Foreign Ministry framed the interaction as consistent with Beijing’s self-portrayal as a founding UN member and a permanent Security Council power that defends multilateralism, international law and the UN’s goals of peace, development and human rights.
Baerbock, who as Germany’s foreign minister in 2023 called President Xi Jinping a “dictator,” has been among Europe’s more confrontational voices on China. Her visit nonetheless underscored Beijing’s strategy of engaging influential European figures even amid tensions.
Vuk Jeremić, a former president of the UN General Assembly and now a professor at Sciences Po, told the SMG program that transatlantic ties were forged against the Soviet threat and that post-Cold War Europe enjoyed long periods of prosperity and influence. But successive shocks — the 2007–08 financial crisis, the 2015 migration wave, Brexit and the turbulence of the Trump years — have accumulated, he said, eroding confidence in established alliances.
Could Europe opt to pivot toward China? Zhang Weiwei, director of the China Institute at Fudan University, warned that Europe is unlikely to completely decouple from the United States. He also argued that Europe missed a chance to dominate next-generation, tech-led industries after Industry 4.0 began in Germany. Without strong European players among the global internet and high-tech platforms, Zhang said, US firms dominate Europe’s digital infrastructure and big data space, while European policymakers remain suspicious of Chinese data companies.
“Years ago, China thought it could learn from German Industry 4.0 to upgrade its manufacturing,” Zhang said. “Now that debate has largely faded.” He described China’s pitch to Brussels as pragmatic: Europe should aim for independent, interest-based cooperation with Beijing. That approach, Zhang suggested, has been reinforced by how Trump has treated Europe since his return to the presidency, prompting European leaders to reassess priorities and to acknowledge that some strategic goals may be hard to achieve without economic and technological ties to China.
Beijing’s outreach is designed to exploit gaps in US-Europe unity and to build deeper economic and institutional links that reflect a more multipolar world. Whether Europe moves closer to China will hinge on difficult trade-offs: balancing commercial opportunities with ambitions for strategic autonomy, protecting technological sovereignty and preserving security relationships with Washington.
This article was translated from German.