China’s rapidly rising global influence since the beginning of the 21st century has deeply changed the power balance in the international system and has placed the European Union (EU) in a strategic dilemma between protecting its economic interests and seeking geopolitical autonomy. On the one hand, the EU tries to continue its economic relations with China, which is its second-largest trading partner. On the other hand, it defines China as a “systemic rival” and takes steps to reduce its strategic dependencies. This situation creates a complex picture in the EU’s foreign policy identity, where realist power balance dynamics, neoliberal ideas of interdependence, and constructivist approaches to normative identity-building exist together.
Especially the idea of “European Strategic Autonomy” (ESA) has gained an institutional character through documents such as the Lisbon Treaty and the Strategic Compass, and with the statements of French President Emmanuel Macron, it has become a symbol of Europe’s claim to be an independent actor not only in defense but also in economy, technology, and value-based foreign policy. After the Russia–Ukraine War, the United States (US) started to give more strategic focus to the Asia-Pacific region, and this situation made the autonomy debates in Europe faster again and strengthened the idea of a “Europe that stands on its own feet.”
China’s rise has created clear effects on Europe, especially in economic, technological, and geoeconomic areas. As of 2024, China became the EU’s largest import partner and caused a trade deficit of about 305 billion euros. A large part of this deficit comes from the strong dependence of European industry on Chinese intermediate goods. Manufactured products, which make up 96% of imports, show how central China is in European supply chains. However, under the European Industrial Resilience Act, which came into force in 2025, goals were set to support domestic production and to create strategic diversification in critical sectors. In this way, the EU showed a will to reduce its dependence on China gradually. At the same time, the restrictions on Chinese suppliers such as Huawei and ZTE in 5G infrastructure reflect the continuing concerns in the field of technology security. Also, a similar careful and strategic approach can be seen in new-generation sectors such as artificial intelligence, semiconductor chip production, and green energy technologies. China’s control over rare earth elements continues to be a serious vulnerability factor in Europe’s green and digital transformation goals.
On the geoeconomic level, China’s port, railway, and energy infrastructure investments in Europe under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) have created increasing influence around the EU’s strategic environment. Examples such as the Port of Piraeus show that China has deepened its entry points into the European market and increased its political influence capacity through these investments. In response, the EU developed policy tools such as the Critical Raw Materials Act, the 5G Cybersecurity Toolbox, and the Anti-Coercion Instrument (ACI), by placing the “risk reduction” policy at the center. This framework does not aim for economic separation but aims to make strategic dependencies more manageable. However, these efforts often cannot reach a consistent unity because of different national interest calculations among member states.
Indeed, one of the biggest challenges in the EU’s China policy is the difficulty of creating a common strategic line among member states. Germany, because of its high dependence in the automotive and machinery sectors, adopts the principle of “de-risking, not decoupling,” while France highlights Europe’s defense capacity in a more ideological way and strengthens the discourse of strategic autonomy. Italy’s decision to leave the BRI at the end of 2023 was seen as a symbolic change of direction inside Europe. However, while Rome tries to rebalance its relations with Washington, it has not completely cut its economic ties with China.
The Netherlands has put the principle of “strategic selective openness” into practice with the license restrictions it introduced on high-technology exports. In contrast, countries like Hungary and Serbia weaken the EU’s common stance by supporting Chinese investments, and this makes it difficult for the Union to develop a single-voiced foreign policy. In Eastern European countries, the security concerns created by the China-Russia rapprochement have deepened military cooperation with the United States and brought transatlantic ties back to the forefront. In the “EU–China Strategic Review Report” published by the European Commission in 2025, these inconsistencies were also identified as the most serious structural obstacle to the Union’s goal of strategic autonomy.
From Beijing’s perspective, Europe’s search for strategic autonomy has a dual meaning. China sees the EU’s effort to act partly independent from the United States as a potential opportunity for itself in the global power competition. However, the depth of the transatlantic ties and the renewed role of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) after the Ukraine War cause this search for autonomy to remain limited in practice. As of 2025, the technology competition between the United States and China has started a new period of “geotechnological separation,” especially in the areas of artificial intelligence chips, quantum computing, and energy storage technologies. This situation forces the EU to follow a strategic balancing policy. Although transatlantic cooperation has become institutionalized through the US–EU Trade and Technology Council, this process also creates a deep contradiction between the EU’s autonomy goal and its actual dependence on the United States. On the other hand, China continues its uncompromising attitude on core interests such as Taiwan, the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, and the Tibet Autonomous Region. This creates a constant area of tension with the EU’s value-based foreign policy approach.
Looking to the future, it seems likely that EU–China relations will take shape within three main scenarios. The first is a pragmatic model based on cooperation in limited areas: issues such as fighting climate change, green financing, and setting digital standards fall into this category. The second is an increase in conflict tendencies in a crisis that may happen in the Taiwan Strait or the South China Sea, and the EU entering a position of mandatory alignment with the United States. This situation could create high economic costs. The third and most probable scenario is a dual-balance scenario in which the EU tries to maintain its relations with the United States in security and with China in economics at the same time, but this situation may weaken the long-term goal of strategic autonomy.
In conclusion, China’s global rise is not only an economic or geopolitical challenge for the EU, but also a historical turning point where it must redefine its own global identity. The EU’s ability to overcome this multi-dimensional dilemma depends not only on economic diversification and developing technological capacity, but also on building a common strategic culture. Europe will gain weight at the global level to the extent that it does not lock itself into a defensive position against China, but combines its search for strategic autonomy with the aim of being an effective actor in a multipolar system. China’s rise can be seen not as a threat for Europe, but as an area of opportunity that tests its political capacity and resilience during this period in which the global order is being redefined.
