Flashpoints | Politics | East Asia
The European left can make Europe’s China policy more socially intelligent. But leftists must not forget that Chinese society is more than the Chinese state.
The European left has never had one China. It has had several: China as the last great revolution still standing; China as a developmental state that appears to have escaped neoliberal decline; China as authoritarian capitalism; China as a climate and trade partner; China as a strategic counterweight to American primacy; and China as the negative image of what socialism becomes when the party-state devours society. These Chinas coexist, compete, and often appear in the same speech. The result is not a single left-wing China policy, but a field of interpretations in which empire, capitalism, sovereignty, class, development, and democracy are constantly rearranged.
That field now matters for Europe. The European Union’s 2019 strategic outlook described China at once as a cooperation partner, negotiating partner, economic competitor, and systemic rival. Six years later, this formula is harder to sustain without political imagination. Eurostat reported that in 2025 the EU exported 199.6 billion euros in goods to China, imported 559.4 billion euros’ worth, and ran a deficit of 359.8 billion euros. Meanwhile, the 2025 China-EU summit showed how crowded the agenda has become: market access, rare-earth dependencies, climate cooperation, Russia’s war against Ukraine, Taiwan, and the South China Sea now sit on the same diplomatic table.
