Is the EU too Dependent on China?

In the past couple of months, the EU has been trying to come up with a more complete China policy, especially as the EU has always had a confusing China policy. In this video, we explore the recent EU debate on how to approach China, the divisions within the EU, and who's right about the sort of relationship the EU should have with China.

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00:00 Introduction
00:49 Recent attempts to define the China relationship
04:11 The divisions on China within the EU
04:58 Who's right?

[sandervr]

the EU needs to stand up for its own industry/economy... Just like the US and China do ..if we don't we are going to lose our economic power and will be a play ball of other instead masters of our own destiny

[miguellopes]

Diversifying the countries you do trade with is never a bad thing, we saw what happened when china close its borders due to COVID and there was alot of talk from various companies of a China+1 policy, and with we saw what happened with countries that got the vast majority of their gas from Russia.

[answerman]

Every business should have more than one supplier.

[BlackWater_]

7:38 Something in-between derisking and decoupling.

Derisking clearly doesn't go far enough but decoupling will leave us without some very crucial resources so what we need to do is get to a point were he can completely decouple at a moment's notice (e.g. when PR China attacks Taiwan) but at the same time try to get as large a stockpile of those crucial resources as possible.

[Tokio-hl]

My guess is that Europe is trying to be independent when it comes to trading deal and such, instead of relying on US. But, EU's approach is not compatible with the rest of the EU members

[NikkyElso]

Europe, like anywhere that is too heavily reliant on a small handful of trading partners, desperately needs to start diversifying their trade. China has been heavily investing in Africa for their own imports, the EU and US need to start doing the same.

[him_That_is_me]

“I know buying Russian gas and oil backfired terribly and only fueled a brutal dictator but it will surely turn out better if we do it again”

[DSAK]

Yes, in the same way the EU was soft on Russian since 2014

[last_aid_kit]

EU: depending on authoritarian russia was a painful and embarrassing mistake
Also EU: hm, this Chinese dictatorship looks like a reliable partner!

[runeeskesen]

What could go wrong with getting closer to a dictator claiming his throne with a vote of 2965 to 0?

[lucasgssilveira]

The Chinese ambassador to France just questioned the legal existence of some of the EU member states.

[eLeft]

Please do the same video for the USA too!

[Awesomewithaz]

EU playing both sides is gonna end up empty handed. Best of luck

[benjaminlamey]

Reducing your dependency on a single partner has always been a good idea. and bringing back sone jobs to the EU could help in a lot of ways. Independently from decoupling or not, these first steps are vital in very short term. whether you consider the single partner to be US or china, de-risking is a good idea ...

[zollen]

Russian federation is also an ex-soviet state. So The sovereign status of RF is also in question as well?

[NYJGreatness]

Europe has not learned its lesson yet.

[UbermanNullist]

Look at how they've dealt with the North Korean nuclear weapons issue over the past 30 years. As a result, China supported North Korea until they completed its nuclear weapons development. Likewise, The CCP will help Russia with the money it earns from the EU market. The CCP always acts with a long-term strategy. If Europeans cannot resist the temptation of short-term benefits, everyone will fall into the death trap.

[AnymMusic]

I think the third option, which a few parties mentioned too, could be a good one. That one being that Europe becomes the next global superpower. Issue being that for that to happen, we kinda have to play both sides to get maximum benefit, and maximum upward momentum. And we can't forget that China and the US might notice this, and subtly try to sabotage that upward movement.

Either way, no matter how corrupt a leader might be, I am always in awe how people like Xi, Macron, von der Leien, etc. work cause this is one of the highest stress environments one can be in

[grumpy]

The Eu is far too reliant on China. All the large corporate companies use it to manufacture items on the cheap. They then charge lots selling them in Europe. iPhone is a prime example. Then there is the enormous amount of energy and materials used to make vast amounts of rubbish that just ends up in the bin.

[krupam]

Any interaction with dictators that doesn't involve putting them on trial is too soft as far as I'm concerned.