Economic dependence is becoming a European security question.
Brussels | July 2026
European Union foreign ministers have issued one of the bloc’s most severe collective assessments of China, describing Beijing as a critical long-term strategic challenge whose influence now extends far beyond trade. Their analysis argues that China possesses asymmetric advantages over Europe through industrial scale, technological progress, control over critical materials and a growing willingness to use economic dependence as geopolitical leverage. The language marks a significant shift in European thinking: China is no longer being examined principally as a difficult commercial partner, but as a power capable of affecting the EU’s security, competitiveness and political resilience. Europe is not announcing a complete rupture, yet it is acknowledging that interdependence can become a strategic vulnerability when one side controls essential technologies and supply chains.
The immediate concern is economic exposure. The EU’s merchandise deficit with China has approached €1 billion per day, while European manufacturers confront heavily subsidized Chinese production in electric vehicles, batteries, solar technology, steel and other industrial sectors. Brussels has established an October deadline for dialogue to produce measurable progress, but European officials have warned that negotiations alone may not be sufficient if overcapacity continues threatening factories and employment across the bloc. China’s dominance in rare-earth processing provides Beijing with additional leverage because those materials are essential for defense equipment, semiconductors, renewable-energy systems and advanced manufacturing. When China restricted exports during its trade confrontation with the United States, European industries discovered that they could become collateral damage in a conflict they did not control.
The ministers’ assessment also connects Europe’s China policy directly with Russia’s war against Ukraine. Beijing continues to deny supporting the invasion militarily, but EU governments regard Chinese trade, technology and economic cooperation as essential to Russia’s capacity to sustain a prolonged confrontation with the West. Several Chinese companies have consequently been targeted under European sanctions, while the deepening relationship between Moscow and Beijing is being interpreted as more than a temporary alignment of convenience. European ministers argue that both governments seek greater regional dominance, technological superiority and a return to spheres of influence in which powerful states determine the choices available to neighboring countries. Their growing military coordination and economic cooperation increasingly connect European security with developments in the Indo-Pacific, reducing the distance between what were once treated as separate strategic theatres.
Brussels nevertheless faces a dilemma that declarations cannot resolve. Europe wants to reduce risk without fully separating from the world’s second-largest economy, but replacing Chinese suppliers would require enormous investment, higher production costs and years of industrial restructuring. Member states also differ in their exposure and political appetite: countries dependent on Chinese markets fear retaliation, while governments with vulnerable manufacturing sectors demand faster protection. The European strategy will therefore depend on diversifying suppliers, rebuilding domestic production and ensuring that no single external actor controls an indispensable share of critical inputs. This is not conventional protectionism alone; it is an attempt to preserve economic openness while preventing openness from becoming dependence.
The new assessment does not make confrontation inevitable, nor does it eliminate the need for cooperation on climate, global health, trade and international stability. It signals that Europe increasingly doubts whether commercial engagement by itself can moderate China’s strategic behavior or produce a balanced relationship. The EU must now decide whether its language will be followed by coordinated industrial policy, credible trade defenses and sustained investment in technological capacity, or whether national divisions will leave the bloc exposed to the same vulnerabilities it has finally recognized. China’s rise is not a temporary crisis to be managed through one summit or sanctions package; it is becoming a structural condition of European geopolitics.
La dependencia económica también puede convertirse en poder político. / Economic dependence can also become political power.