A Europe-China tariff axis would be a dead end

Europe and China have good reason to make common cause on US President Donald Trump's tariffs.

To hear Chinese Premier Li Qiang tell it, the two are already comrades in defending the global trading system.

China and the European Union are strong advocates of economic globalization and should work together to enhance communication, expand mutual openness and safeguard free trade, Li told European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in a phone call Tuesday, according to state media.

Some tactical cooperation makes sense for both sides — just don't expect any grand bargain.

The Xinhua news agency account didn't include any mention of Ukraine.

But the EU's readout did. Von der Leyen "reaffirmed the EU's steadfast support for a just and lasting peace" in the three-year-old war and emphasized that any conditions for peace "must be determined by Ukraine." She invited China to intensify its efforts to "contribute meaningfully" to the peace process, according to the statement.

Beijing's response to the 2022 invasion is a defining event in Europe's perceptions of China. It declined to condemn Vladimir Putin's military aggression and has extended economic and diplomatic support to Russia.

Coincidentally (perhaps), President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Tuesday that Ukrainian troops captured two Chinese citizens fighting for Russia, the first time the country's nationals have been taken prisoner during the war. That furnished a reminder of where China's default sympathies lie, on the same day as Li's call with von der Leyen.

Does this matter? I would argue so.

The world keeps turning and the immediate matter at hand is how to deal with the damage threatened by Trump's policies — even if these remain unpredictable after the president announced a 90-day pause on tariffs for most countries Wednesday, while raising them to 125% for China.

In any war, including the trade kind, my enemy's enemy is my friend. Moreover, the EU economy is more open to trade than either China or the US, so it's arguably under greater pressure to seek allies.

This near-term necessity must be balanced against the recognition that China's ruling Communist Party stands on the side of forces that present an existential threat to Europe's security.

Such a fundamental reality can't be ignored, though some are willing to try. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, who will meet President Xi Jinping in Beijing on Friday, told reporters that the EU needs to change its stance toward China and that Spain can play a role as a builder of more balanced alliances between the two. Sanchez has secured billions of euros of investment in battery production and renewable energy since criticizing EU tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles last year.

Europe's leaders, including those in the UK, have long been tempted to project hopes of prosperity-enhancing partnership on to China — a vast, faraway and sometimes mysterious country of seemingly limitless economic potential.

The Communist Party has played astutely to this tendency over the past five decades, often giving the impression that it was committed to moving toward a rules-based system more in keeping with those of the world's largest and most developed economies (which were, until China's rise, all democracies). "Hide your strength, bide your time" was the dictum used by Deng Xiaoping, the paramount leader whose pro-market reforms put China on the road to superpower status.

That era is over. Under Xi, it has become clear that China hasn't come to join the postwar global order designed by the US, but to reshape it in its own image. The Ukraine invasion is the most tangible demonstration of that.

Three weeks before Russian troops started crossing the border, Xi and Putin signed an agreement that said there would be "no limits" to their cooperation. It is a remarkably candid document that can fairly be described as a blueprint for a new world order — one that is more comfortable for autocracies. China professed neutrality after the Ukraine war started, but its diplomatic actions and expanding trade and investment with Russia are evidence of de facto support.

If this wasn't alienating enough for the EU, Beijing rammed home the point by communicating ineptly. Its call for Europe to show "strategic autonomy" implied that the continent supported Ukraine only because it was under the thumb of the US.

Strategic autonomy has indeed been an aspiration for the EU (and a doctrine that force of circumstance is now turning into a reality), but this was a gross misreading. Europeans didn't need any help from the US in knowing who to blame for the continent's biggest armed conflict since World War II.

It's difficult to overstate just what a watershed moment this was for Europe (and one that China, with its globalization happy talk, still seems not to have absorbed). Once the mask has slipped, the illusion can't be seen again. The US may be acting in an unfriendly manner right now, but at least it doesn't have a historical dedication to the subjugation of liberal democratic freedoms — and there is always the chance that it will return to its senses at some point. What such hopes can Europe have for Communist China?

Expediency dictates there will be some cooperation between Europe and China, but don't mistake it for anything more profound or longer lasting. Some things are worth more than an extra battery plant or two.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Disclaimer: This article first appeared on Bloomberg and is published by a special syndication arrangement.