When Progress No Longer Requires Democracy |
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s diplomatic balancing act during his visit to China last month exposed a growing tension within the European Union, struggling to respond to geopolitical fragmentation and economic stagnation. According to Wang Hanyi, a research fellow at Shanghai International Studies University, the Spanish leader “achieved a delicate equilibrium between high-level strategic rhetoric and pragmatic cooperation.”
“The equilibrium provides a viable blueprint for European countries navigating their ties with China,” Wang argued. Yet critics dismiss Spain’s approach as little more than a “compliment sandwich” praise wrapped around selective criticism unlikely to alter Beijing’s strategic behaviour.
That debate has now collided with a far larger geopolitical drama. When U.S. President Donald Trump arrived in Beijing this week for talks with Xi Jinping, he framed the encounter in stark civilisational terms: “We’re the two superpowers.” Xi responded with a warning about the Thucydides Trap, the historical tendency toward confrontation when an emerging power threatens an established one. Watching from the margins, Europe fears strategic irrelevance once again.
This would not be Europe’s first descent from the centre of world politics. The Cold War reduced the continent to a frontline theatre between Washington and Moscow. Today, the rivalry between the United States and China risks marginalising Europe economically rather than militarily.
Rare earth minerals and battery technologies have become the strategic assets of the twenty-first century, much as nuclear arsenals were........