China Risks Losing Its European Union Linchpin

China faces rising European concern over its failure to provide promised business access to European companies, genocide against the Uyghur people, shredding of Hong Kong democracy, threats to subjugate Taiwan, intellectual property theft and endemic espionage. China’s diplomatic arrogance has further agitated the Continent.

Lu Shaye,

China’s ambassador to France, has been explaining to the land of liberté why Taiwan’s people will have to be “re-educated” when the PLA lands on their shores.

Enraged by Beijing’s decision to impose sanctions on European parliamentarians who complain about human-rights abuses, the European Parliament is adopting a newly skeptical stance toward China. Eastern European governments are taking further independent action to reduce their cooperation with Beijing. On that count, the European Union is considering whether to launch a unified response to China’s trade war against Lithuania. China began that conflict after Lithuania last year allowed Taiwan to open a representative office in Vilnius under the name Taiwan.

The EU’s rising skepticism of Beijing is a dramatic shift from the traditional European strategy of former German Chancellor

Angela Merkel.

Putting trade before all other concerns, Ms. Merkel sought to conclude a major EU-China trade deal before leaving office last year. To its credit, the European Parliament has shelved that deal.

That could be a big problem for Beijing.

Xi Jinping

and his powerful Standing Committee inner circle had assumed that relations with Europe would continue to develop on an easy footing—that as long as Beijing kept throwing new investments at European nations, their governments would keep turning a blind eye to China’s aggressive action in other areas.

From Mr. Xi’s perspective, Europe would provide China with growing access to and influence over the West. With time, this would allow Beijing to degrade U.S. efforts to mobilize traditional alliances against it. Looking forward, this would provide Beijing with the political capital and space to displace the U.S.-led democratic order with its own feudal mercantilist order.

China has belatedly recognized the risk of losing its European linchpin. Beijing’s Global Times propaganda newspaper recently screeched its criticism of those calling for a more robust European stance toward China. Citing the “worrying tendency” of European opinion about Beijing, the paper called on Europe to “figure out how much of its anxiety around China really comes from China, and how much comes from surrendering strategic autonomy to the U.S.”

This reference to “strategic autonomy” is a play on French President Emmanuel Macron’s use of that term as a strategic framework for European policy independence from the U.S. The intellectual fallacy of Mr. Macron’s framework is its conception of strategic autonomy as something akin to “that which helps France and Germany in any one moment” instead of “that which helps Europe at large.” The Global Times concluded by warning Europeans that “It’s easy to fall into a big hole specifically dug for Europe.”

Europe should consider China’s latest outrage against European interests carefully. China is the one digging the hole in Sino-European relations, and the PLA participation in Vostok 2022 is compelling proof. This isn’t merely an international military parade. It is a command and staff exercise to improve commanders’ ability to fight effectively amid the fog and friction of war. By joining Vostok 2022, China is providing symbolic and professional support to the military waging war on Ukraine and thus also on European stability and security. Russia’s war imperils what China often asserts as the most fundamental tenet of international order: respect for state sovereignty.

Europe must recognize that communist China isn’t a friend. Mr. Xi’s regime represents an ambitious authoritarian adversary, which wants to have its European cake while also helping Russia eat it. This threatens the fundamental principle of the European project: the right of its peoples to live in freedom and peace after thousands of years of wars. European leaders should be outraged at China’s Vostok adventurism and reject deeper cooperation with Beijing.

Mr. Rogan is a national-security writer for the Washington Examiner.