China and Europe: Can the EU and the UK find a shared strategy?
Think tank: Centre for European Reform
Author(s): Ian Bond
October 14, 2025
This report from UK think tank the Centre for European Reform focuses on trade, technology and geopolitics.
The UK and the EU both recognise that China is a rival and that it is promoting its authoritarian model of governance globally. Neither has drawn the policy consequences from their analysis. They need to co-operate in showing that liberal democracy works better than authoritarianism. That is the conclusion of a new joint paper by the Centre for European Reform and the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung United Kingdom and Ireland.
The paper, ‘China and Europe: Can the EU and the UK find a shared strategy?’ focuses on trade, technology and geopolitics:
On trade, it notes that despite repeated expressions of concern from the EU and the UK, Chinese industrial overcapacity is causing surging exports that are driving European producers out of their domestic and export markets.
On technology, it warns that China leads Europe in many areas critical to economic success, and the gap is growing. At the same time, China is engaged in a massive military build-up, and its links with European academia are helping to facilitate some of its advances in military technology. «
On geopolitics, it underlines the fact that China is working against European interests. China is helping Russia in its war with Ukraine, poses an increasing threat to Europe’s partners in the Indo-Pacific region and is successfully promoting its techno-authoritarian model of governance in the global south.
The paper argues that the numerous European strategies focused on China and the Indo-Pacific region are vague about ends and even vaguer about means, and unrealistic in thinking that with enough persuasion Xi Jinping will open up Chinese markets to European competitors. Neither the EU nor the UK want to think through the consequences of China being a systemic rival, but they must.
