Out of all the speeches that Ursula von der Leyen has ever given, there is one that resonates to this day, perhaps louder than ever before.
More than three years ago, in March 2023, the president of the European Commission delivered a landmark, wide-ranging addressdissecting the state of EU-China relations, which she described as "the most intricate and important anywhere in the world".
Back then, it was rare for an EU leader to focus a public intervention exclusively on China, as Russia's war on Ukraine dominated the political agenda. In fact, von der Leyen devoted the first part of her address to castigating Chinese President Xi Jinping for his "no-limits friendship" with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Her main grievances, though, lay on the economic front. Von der Leyen spoke at length about China's distorting subsidies, unfair competition, coercive practices, growing imbalances, forced technology transfers and monopoly of critical raw materials, all of which, she said, required a brand-new approach: de-risking.
These friction points are now at the centre of a fast-moving reckoning inside the Commission as the glut of low-cost imports from China strangles the European economy, destroys jobs and shuts down factories.
