EU leaders expressed increasing concern on Friday (21 October) about economic dependencies with China and said they needed a united stance towards Beijing.

The EU leader’s discussion follows a meeting of the bloc’s foreign ministers earlier this week, which have been presented with a call to toughen the EU’s stance towards Beijing.

The EU should view China primarily as a competitor with limited areas of potential engagement, an internal memo by the EU’s diplomatic service, seen by EURACTIV earlier this week, states.

“We have to be very vigilant when it comes to dependencies, and we’ve learned our lesson,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said, adding that EU leaders discussed levelling the playing field with Beijing.

There was “great consensus and convergence on the importance of truly developing strategic autonomy,” European Council President Charles Michel said after the summit.

Long discussions, short conclusions

As a EU official who asked not to be quoted said, the discussion on China lasted long, although the summit conclusions only mention that “The European Council held a strategic discussion on the European Union’s relations with China.”

The discussion between EU leaders, which lasted more than three hours, “showed the very clear will to avoid being naive but neither do we want to embark on systematic dispute” with China, Michel added.

The tougher language towards Beijing comes also as the EU’s first full summit with the ASEAN group of Southeast Asian countries is planned for 14 December, with Europe hoping to bolster trade and geopolitical relations with a region in the shadow of China.

For the EU, the talks will be a chance “to underline our shared attachment to international law and internationally agreed on norms and standards, as well as to emphasise the importance of common interests that bind our two regions in a long-standing partnership”, the leaders’ statement reads.

EU27+1?

Amid Western criticism of China over the escalating pressure on democratically-ruled Taiwan, which China claims as its own territory, and the strengthening of ties with Moscow during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Beijing’s diplomacy has further suffered in Europe over the past few months.

Last year, Lithuania was the first in Central and Eastern Europe to quit what it called the “divisive” Chinese 17+1 forum, created in 2012 to promote cooperation between China and Central and Eastern Europe (CEE).

The number of European partners in the initiative has already fallen to 14, after the recent Baltic exit.

“I think with China it’s the same as with Russia. It is in their interest that we are divided. It’s in our interest that we are united,” Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas told reporters in Brussels.

Latvian Prime Minister Krišjānis Kariņš said it was important for the EU to speak with China to make sure it was “on the right side of history” over Russia’s war against Ukraine.

“China is best dealt with when we are 27, not when we are one on one vis-à-vis China,” he said.

Finnish counterpart Sanna Marin stressed the EU needed to avoid building future dependencies and instead promote stronger cooperation between democratic countries.

“We shouldn’t be dependent on authoritarian regimes on critical issues such as technology,” she said.

“We have been a bit too complacent as European countries,” said Belgian Prime Minister Alexander de Croo.

“Over the past months, we’ve understood that in a lot of pure economic domains, geopolitics also play an important role,” he added.

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte stressed the EU should develop its own course on how to respond to China’s increasing assertiveness, independently from the US.

“It’s important that Europe operates as self-confident as possible, but also independently,” Rutte said, adding the EU should seek “equality and reciprocity, so that we are not a kind of extension of America but that we have our own politics vis-à-vis China.”

Germany and France do it solo

The push for a united European approach towards Beijing comes as Germany’s ruling coalition considers whether to let Chinese state-owned shipping group Cosco take a stake in a Hamburg port terminal.

The response of the German government, currently divided on the issue, is seen as a gauge of how far it is willing to toughen its stance towards its top trading partner.

EU’s two largest economies leaders German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and French President Emmanuel Macron are scheduled to visit Beijing with their respective business delegations to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping next month.