Dear readers,
This month’s Guanxi Dialogue examines how Europe’s relationship with China is being reshaped by economic security, geopolitical rivalry, and the broader consequences of war. The language of engagement is giving way to a more cautious logic of resilience and exposure management.
We are honoured to feature Mathieu Duchâtel, Director of International Studies and Senior Fellow for Asia at Institut Montaigne, whose work offers a lucid analysis of the structural dynamics redefining EU–China relations. From the impact of the war in Ukraine to debates on Taiwan, trade asymmetries, and China’s positioning in multilateral arenas, this conversation moves beyond abstract concepts and focuses on the practical challenges facing European policymakers today.
We would like to extend a special thank you to Chiara Perani for conducting this interview, and to Rosalinda Manzo who contributed to shaping this edition.
Francesco Palma, Head of the Newsletter
Between Engagement and Security
In the interview with Mathieu Duchâtel, Director of International Studies and former Director of the Asia Program at Institut Montaigne, one idea emerged with particular clarity: Europe’s relationship with China is no longer defined primarily by optimism, market opportunity, or even abstract debates about “strategic autonomy.” It is increasingly shaped by economic security, war, and systemic rivalry.
When Duchâtel recalls his time in Taiwan between 2003 and 2007, the contrast with the European experience is striking. Economic security was already a concrete policy dilemma in Taipei, as Cross-Strait investment was booming, and the risk of technological hollowing out in sectors like semiconductors was forcing Taiwan to make hard choices: the most advanced production would stay home, preserving a two-generation technological lead. Europe, by contrast, only internalised comparable concerns around 2016–2017, a full decade later.
This matters because it shifts the relationship from the language of partnership to the language of resilience and vulnerability management. The EU is no longer trying to “change China” through engagement, but rather to shield itself from the consequences of dependence. The electric vehicle case illustrates this shift well. After its anti-subsidy investigation, the EU imposed definitive duties on Chinese battery electric vehicles in 2024, and in January 2026 the Commission issued formal guidance for price-undertaking offers, showing that Brussels is willing to negotiate, but only within a much stricter economic-security framework.
Duchâtel is nevertheless skeptical about the relevance of the concept of “strategic autonomy.” In his view, the term is largely an abstraction that does not capture the central dynamics shaping EU–China relations. While it remains an aspiration for some European policymakers, the real issues are more concrete: the persistent economic asymmetry between Europe and China and Beijing’s growing alignment with Russia. Framed this way, the debate is less about autonomy in the abstract and more about whether Europe can effectively manage economic exposure and geopolitical competition.
A major theme of the interview is that the war in Ukraine has done more to reconfigure Europe’s reading of China than any bilateral dispute. Duchâtel is frank about the limits of French diplomatic engagement: President Macron’s personal rapport with Xi Jinping has produced little visible movement on either the economic imbalance or China’s relationship with Russia. In Duchâtel’s view, China’s relationship with Russia is not a misunderstanding to be corrected, but part of a broader balancing strategy against the West. Statements by the G7 in 2025 reflected this growing concern, explicitly describing China as a “decisive enabler” of Russia’s war effort. From Beijing’s perspective, however, the status quo remains advantageous, Duchâtel argues. China continues to enjoy broad access to the European single market, a structural trade surplus, and no meaningful cost for its support to Russia’s war effort.
Another important dimension of the interview concerns Taiwan. Duchâtel highlights Taiwan not only as a military flashpoint but as a contest over legitimacy and narrative. From Beijing’s perspective, the use of force in the Taiwan Strait is already justified under the “one China” principle, framed as a domestic matter rather than international conflict. Since the war in Ukraine, however, China has paid close attention to how international law and the UN Charter are used to justify support for territorial defense, shaping narratives to prevent similar reasoning from being applied in its own disputes. In the short term, Beijing has focused on delegitimising Taiwan’s executive branch, exploiting internal political divisions, and influencing messaging abroad.
At the same time, Duchâtel resists alarmism and cautions against simplistic military scenarios. He rather points to political warfare, influence operations, and Beijing’s longer-term effort to shape Taiwan’s 2028 electoral environment. His analysis suggests something more complex: China’s strategy may involve keeping military pressure high enough to alter perceptions and political incentives, while avoiding the risks of near-term war. Duchâtel argues that for European policymakers, this means the Taiwan issue should be understood not only through deterrence, but also through democratic resilience, information integrity, and alliance signalling.
Finally, Duchâtel’s reading of China’s Davos messaging is among the most relevant parts of the interview. When Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng presented China as a defender of globalisation and multilateralism at the World Economic Forum in January 2026, the message was aimed at audiences unsettled by renewed tariff wars and U.S. unpredictability. Yet Duchâtel interprets this less as principled commitment to the liberal order than as a tactical posture designed to exploit Western fragmentation. European leaders are increasingly less willing to “take the bait,” because they now see the trade imbalance with China as structural rather than temporary.
Taken together, Duchâtel’s reflections suggest that the EU–China relationship has entered a phase that European policy frameworks are still catching up to. The old logic of engagement has been quietly retired, without a fully articulated replacement: continued dialogue, now approached with caution; continued trade, now filtered through security logic; continued invocations of multilateralism in a system where the largest states treat it as an instrument rather than a constraint.
The challenge Duchâtel ultimately poses is whether European institutions can develop the strategic literacy to manage a relationship in which both imperatives are permanently present, without mistaking tactical goodwill for structural alignment.