French President Emmanuel Macron’s recent visit to China reinforced bilateral ties through trade, investment, and scientific cooperation, yet yielded few breakthroughs on contentious issues like Ukraine or advanced technology transfer, reflecting Beijing’s guarded approach. While Macron projects a Neo-Gaullist vision of strategic autonomy and a “Third Way” between the U.S. and China, structural constraints in France and the enduring weight of trans-Atlantic ties limit the substantive impact of his approach.

China’s Global Governance Initiative contains some clear structural and cognitive differences compared with the West. Global governance has entered a post-Western era and requires the building of a new governance regime that features consultation and sharing.

Reframing Europe as an example of civilizational erosion reinforces crisis narratives among conservatives in the United States while mirroring problems that exist within Europe itself. In effect, Washington is using Europe’s crisis to tell a story about America.

By sacrificing Chinese interests to signal alignment with the United States, the European Union overestimates its own leverage and underestimates China’s resilience and strategic resolve, thereby complicating pragmatic China-EU cooperation and impeding coordination on global challenges.

Europe has failed to establish a coherent strategy toward China, shifting inconsistently between partnership, competition, and rivalry without defining clear objectives. Ursula von der Leyen’s 2025 State of the Union address, which omitted any substantive mention of China, marked the collapse of the EU’s China policy and exposed its strategic paralysis amid U.S. pressure and Chinese influence.

The U.S. president has upended the traditional liberal international order, recalibrated relations with allies and is poised to exert a profound influence on the global strategic landscape through transactional alliances.

Europe retains global influence in areas such as multilateral governance, the green transition and technological innovation. If it can craft a new synthesis between strategic autonomy and transatlantic cooperation, it may yet play an independent role in the emerging great-power landscape.

As the endgame looms over the proxy war in Ukraine, the catastrophic costs of the unwarranted conflict continue to soar. There was an alternative future for Ukraine, based on development. But it was purposely denied.

At the 25th China-EU Summit in Beijing, Chinese and European leaders acknowledged both overlapping interests and deep divergences, especially over China’s seeming alignment with Russia and the Ukraine war. While Beijing seeks improved economic ties with Europe, it continues to prioritize geopolitical security and its strategic rivalry with the U.S. over European concerns, limiting the prospects for major diplomatic improvements.

Earlier this year, the Chinese firm CATL, the world’s largest battery-maker, unveiled an electric-vehicle (EV) battery capable of delivering a remarkable 520 kilometers (323 miles) of driving range after just five minutes of charging. The announcement came a month after BYD, China’s leading EV manufacturer, launched its own ultra-fast charging system. In solar, too, the numbers are staggering: Chinese firms can now produce over 1,200 gigawatts of solar panels annually.