For six months, Europe has debated how Washington’s shake-up of the Western order might reshape its relations with China. As a weeks-long flurry of summits gets under way, Brussels finally has its answer: not at all.
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Flirtations between the two sides about patching things up in the early days of US President Donald Trump’s return have gone nowhere. European Union officials, laying the ground for the month ahead, say a much-vaunted Chinese charm offensive was threadbare.
Instead of a grand rapprochement, the EU finds itself back where it was at the end of last year: fighting with Beijing over trade and pleading for it to do more to rein in Russia’s aggression against Ukraine. For weary Europe, it’s as if the first half of 2025 was a fever dream from which it is finally coming around.
“I don’t think that the relationship has fundamentally moved. I think the Chinese have a tendency to want to portray this as a very problem-free relationship,” said a senior EU official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
“That’s because if they don’t change on the economic imbalances, and they don’t change on their embrace of Russia, it might be to their advantage, but it’s not to ours, and our job is to try to get some balance in this relationship.”
For much of the year, July has hung over the EU like Damocles’ sword. Sandwiched between big-ticket engagements with China, Brussels must reach a deal with the United States before July 9 or face a 50 per cent import tariff. Now that it’s here, policymakers and negotiators are girding themselves for some difficult conversations.