European resilience will require a more proactive approach to partnerships

Ensuring Europe’s resilience vis-à-vis China  requires a wider range of actors and better coordination among the existing ones, say Abigaël Vasselier and Helena Legarda.

Ensuring Europe’s resilience vis-à-vis China cannot be a unilateral effort in an interconnected world where supply and value chains span multiple countries, and where many China-related challenges are shared. Resilience demands more cooperation with Europe’s global partners, and within the EU, to mitigate the risks China poses to Europe’s prosperity, security, and democratic values. 

Partnerships are the only way to meet challenges on such a scale, and the patchwork of competences within the EU means individual member states cannot respond to the challenges related to building resilience on their own. For instance, single countries will not have the capacity to effectively respond to economic coercion on their own nor ensure resilient supply chains through actions at the national level. Yet resilience-building is often perceived as a unilateral issue, especially outside the economic sphere.

Overcoming resistance to greater coordination on resilience

A more ambitious and coherent European approach is needed because of the many far-reaching issues that need to be considered, and thinking on resilience should be widened to embrace political and societal issues, as well as broader security-related questions. This would require much greater cooperation and coordination at the national, European, and multilateral levels, to generate responses at all three levels that are mutually reinforcing. 

Better coordination is needed at the multilateral level. For member states, the EU is a key partner in their resilience-building efforts. However, discussions on how to improve economic and other forms of resilience are increasingly also taking place in multilateral formats like the G7 or NATO, in an attempt to align responses to the varied China-related pressures and challenges. 

This development has triggered some resistance in many European capitals, generally from fear of losing decision-making power in multilateral fora where countries either may not have a presence or lack clout. Many worry that discussing resilience in such settings allows Washington to set the agenda. Another concern is that their national security concerns and national competence over related issues may be disregarded. 

5G example has shown the limits of EU influence on member states decisions

National security will remain a national prerogative, which could impede the capacity of the EU to act fast in building resilience. The debates over Huawei’s role in Europe’s 5G infrastructure illustrate the sensitivity of this question of national security competences for member states, and their limited willingness to let the EU make decisions in this space.

On the one hand, member states saw the benefits of the EU’s 2019 5G recommendation, as it gave them cover to ban Chinese companies on the basis of national security concerns. Yet, as shown in the Resilience Audit, five years later, some European capitals still have not reached a decision on whether Huawei should be deemed a high-risk provider and thus banned. Despite the existence of an EU-wide recommendation, member states are reluctant to let Brussels set the agenda on security-related questions.

These are legitimate concerns that must be addressed. Member states inevitably differ in their views of the China challenge and their priorities. And hence their policy responses differ, too. The objective should be a unified European perspective and approach, one that allows for collective coordination with partners. But, in the meantime, individual member states that belong to multilateral groupings or alliances have a responsibility to ensure other member states do not feel left out of the conversation. Without this, the gaps between China debates at the national level and the speed at which the EU, the G7 and other groupings are moving on resilience will only increase member states’ resistance to greater multilateral coordination on resilience.

The EU has an important role to play here. One solution would be to institutionalize work on resilience through the creation of a European Council working group to foster collective conversations and coordination between member states. National security considerations would remain the competence of member state capitals. However, the EU would have to be empowered to tackle broader issues related to national security and democratic resilience. Such a structure would lessen the opportunities for China to exploit divisions between member states. It would also help better mitigate risks, avoid duplication of efforts, facilitate the sharing of expertise and information, and make for swifter consensus and alignment if quick responses to Chinese actions are needed. The mandate of this working group would of course expand beyond China to cover the issues stemming from European dependencies on other countries. But greater coordination within the EU is not enough. 

NATO and the G7 are key partners for resilience-building

NATO and the G7 have contributed to a broader European understanding of resilience and some complementarity in responses – both to China policy and resilience-building. Building on the 2016 NATO Summit declaration on the Commitment to Enhance Resilience, at the 2022 Madrid Summit, NATO leaders endorsed a new Strategic Concept that addressed the “systemic challenges” posed by China for the first time. It proposed a more integrated and coherent approach to national and collective resilience against military and non-military threats. It led to the creation of the NATO Resilience Committee (2022), the integration of these points in the NATO Agenda 2030, and Resilience Objectives to be addressed at national level.

G7 discussions on (primarily China-related) resilience show some overlap with NATO discussions, despite their greater economic focus. The 2023 G7 Leaders’ Statement on Economic Resilience and Economic Security, for example, cites the need to address hybrid threats, protect critical infrastructure, and ensure resilient supply chains among the seven dimensions of economic resilience – all issues that are reflected in NATO’s resilience work, too. The G7 has also worked on addressing economic coercion, cooperating on international standard-setting and preventing leakages of critical and emerging technologies. The creation of a G7 China Working Group has ensured China-topics are fed into discussions on future prosperity and security. 

Clearly, there are substantial overlaps between China- and resilience-related concerns across the EU, NATO and the G7, and hence plenty of scope for greater coordination on assessments and responses and some burden-sharing to avoid duplication of effort.

Expanding partnerships beyond the EU, NATO and the G7 is the way forward 

Despite all the work being done, there are still several gaps that must be addressed to better mitigate risks. Societal and political resilience have been only partially touched upon, mostly through the lens of hybrid threats or election interference. The omission reflects the specific competences of the EU, NATO and the G7, but nonetheless it leaves serious vulnerabilities in our systems and societies. Some countries are working on these areas at the national level – although to varying degrees. National level efforts would be strengthened and complemented by a greater coordination role for the EU, and multilateral initiatives like a G7 initiative to build China competence, or an exchange of good practices with NATO allies on national guidelines for informed and safe sub-national interactions with China, for example. 

A broader conceptualization of resilience requires a wider range of actors and better coordination among the existing ones. Within Europe, the private sector and civil society should play a more prominent role. Building a “China Resilience Advisory Board”, an initiative involving political decision-makers, citizens and companies on questions of derisking and resilience building vis-à-vis China would be an opportunity to increase coordination beyond governments.

China-focused resilience-building work, however, implies costs. Many of the required measures would put pressure on Europe’s coffers, which could be heightened by retaliation from Beijing for any perceived threat to China’s national interests. So far, however, neither member state capitals, nor the EU, NATO or the G7 have openly accompanied their resilience work with outreach to explain the costs and trade-offs to a public that might not feel ready to pay them. Member states need to start publicly developing the idea of a “security and resilience premium” that can be covered through national, European and multilateral efforts. 

Coordination should also be widened beyond the like-minded partner countries within NATO and the G7. Wider partnerships are essential, for example, to reduce dependencies on China in critical raw materials and other supply chains, support Europe’s green and digital transitions, and promote resilience against potential future pandemics. Furthermore, resilience work thus far has focused on defensive measures and erecting barriers, especially in the economic sphere. The “China Resilience Advisory Board” and other related formats should include a space for European actors to rethink how to involve other countries in resilience building work in ways that lower costs and improve effectiveness.

Whatever the obstacles, partnerships are the only way forward for European countries serious about de-risking their ties with China and increasing their resilience.

You were reading an analysis from the MERICS Europe China Resilience Audit. For detailed country profiles, in-depth reports and further analyses, visit the project's landing page.

This MERICS analysis is part of the project “Dealing with a Resurgent China” (DWARC) which has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under grant agreement number 101061700.

Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.