French president Charles de Gaulle once said: “It will not be any European statesman who will unite Europe: Europe will be united by the Chinese.” He must be turning in his grave to see how Europe has been divided, rather than united, by the Chinese.
On a recent joint visit to China to show European solidarity, president of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen and French President Emmanuel Macron, however, seemed poles apart. Von der Leyen criticised China’s friendship with Russia and spoke of a need to “de-risk”. Macron said Europe must avoid being drawn into any US-China conflict over Taiwan, and has maintained that Europe should not become a “vassal”.
Europe’s strategic autonomy lies in how it deals with major powers such as the United States, Russia and China independently, but it won’t happen any time soon. With war raging in Ukraine, Europe is more reliant than ever on America. In reaction to Macron’s comments, US Senator Marco Rubio said if Europe would not pick a side between the US and China over Taiwan, then maybe the US should focus on Taiwan and let the Europeans handle Ukraine themselves.
However long the Ukraine war lasts, the likely outcome is an armistice. Last year, Russia declared the incorporation of Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. Although Russia can hardly have full control of the four provinces, it must have some gains to justify its war. That leaves Ukraine with a nightmare scenario: no Nato membership and the loss of further territory after Crimea.
Europe cannot possibly grow its strategic autonomy while in the shadow of Nato, the transatlantic security alliance. Macron famously said Nato was “brain-dead”. Supporters can point to Finland’s entry to say Nato is becoming more popular, but Macron is still right. The war brilliantly illustrates Nato’s Catch-22: no matter how strong, Nato does not dare launch an attack on the world’s largest nuclear-armed state, but neither can it claim defence – 31 countries ganging up on one looks ludicrous.
Nato may survive and even celebrate its centenary, but so what if it merely becomes irrelevant? The Anglo-Portuguese Alliance is the world’s oldest, at over 600 years, but how many people know, and who really cares?
Much has been said about the advent of another cold war. If the only consensus between Beijing and Washington is to avoid a hot war, then we probably are in a new cold war. What makes this one different, though, is that this is a competition between two giants, rather than two blocs.
The competition, then, is first to see who makes fewer mistakes and, then, who can win over the third parties. The battleground won’t be in the Global South, where the US has very much lost to China, especially in Africa and Latin America. It won’t be in the Indo-Pacific either, where few countries want to take sides. It will be in Europe, where the US has most of its allies and where China is the largest trading partner.
Gradually, the transatlantic alliance will relax. Even if America’s decline is gradual, it cannot afford a global military presence. It will have to retreat from around the world, including from the Middle East and Europe, to focus on the Indo-Pacific, where the US sees China as a long-term threat. Successive US presidents, Republican and Democrat alike, have asked Europeans to take greater ownership of their security. In other words, Europe has to have strategic autonomy, even if it doesn’t want to.
That Europe takes China as a partner, competitor and systemic rival at the same time says more about Europe’s confusion about China, than what China really is. This year has seen a blitz of visits to Beijing by European leaders. The reason is simple: Europe cannot afford to have sour relations with Beijing and Moscow at the same time. The longer the war, the more Europe will look to China for mediation.
Presumably, Europe will deal with China and the US with pragmatism, that is, making choices on issues case by case, rather than picking sides.
There is only one scenario that could change Europe-China relations fundamentally – a war in the Taiwan Strait. But there is no evidence that Taiwan is bound to become the next Ukraine.
Although most Taiwanese wish to maintain the status quo, the process of cross-strait integration has begun. An estimated 1.2 million Taiwanese, or 5 per cent of Taiwan’s population, lived and worked on the mainland in 2020. So long as mainland China continues to open up, this process won’t stop.
Beijing’s strategic patience is also reflected in China’s second military exercise around the island. Even if Beijing clearly took Tsai Ing-wen’s meeting with US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy in California as a provocation, its response was much more measured than when his predecessor, Nancy Pelosi, visited Taiwan, in that it simulated attacks without the live firing of weapons.
Beijing knows more than anyone that peaceful reunification is in its best interests, and more importantly, that it is still possible.
The potent legacy of de Gaulle is that every French politician after him seems to be a Gaullist. But if de Gaulle was speaking for France, Macron was trying to speak on behalf of Europe. Time will prove that he is more prescient than von der Leyen. In a 21st-century multipolar world, a Europe that stands as a pole would look its strongest.
导读：本文为作者5月2日发表于《南华早报》的评论文章“The True Battleground in the US-China cold war will be in Europe”；观察者网获授权全文翻译，以飨读者。
【文/观察者网专栏作者 周波】
法国前总统戴高乐曾说过：“将欧洲团结起来的不会是任何欧洲政客，而是中国人”。如果戴高乐看到当下的欧洲如何因中国而分裂却非团结，想必他的棺材板都要压不住了。
欧盟委员会主席冯德莱恩和法国总统马克龙最近联合访华以示欧洲团结，但却显得南辕北辙。冯德莱恩批评了中国与俄罗斯的友谊，并谈到了“去风险“的需要。马克龙则表示，欧洲必须避免被卷入美中在台湾问题上的任何冲突，并认为欧洲不应成为美国的“附庸”。
冯德莱恩与马克龙
欧洲的战略自主在于它如何独立处理与美国、俄罗斯和中国等大国的关系，但这在短期内很难实现。随着乌克兰战火肆虐，欧洲比以往任何时候都更依赖美国。针对马克龙的言论，美国参议员鲁比奥（Marco Rubio）说，如果欧洲不在台海问题上选边站队，那么也许美国应该专注于台湾，让欧洲人自己处理乌克兰危机。
无论俄乌冲突持续多久，最有可能的结果仍将是停战。去年，俄罗斯宣布将卢甘斯克、顿涅茨克、赫尔松和扎波罗热并入俄罗斯领土。尽管俄罗斯无法完全控制这四个地区，但它必须占据一些，以证明其发起特别军事行动的合理性。这让乌克兰面临着一个噩梦般的局面：既无法加入北约，却又将在失去克里米亚后丢掉更多领土。
欧洲不可能在北约的阴影下实现战略自主。马克龙曾说北约已“脑死亡”。北约的支持者可以指着芬兰的加入说，北约正在变得更受欢迎。但马克龙仍然是对的。这场战争绝妙地诠释了北约的尴尬处境：无论多么强大，北约都不敢对世界上最大的核武国发动攻击；但声称自己是一个防御组织也很离谱，毕竟，眼下是31个国家在联合起来对付一个国家。
北约可能会存活下去，甚至能挺到庆祝成立一百周年，但如果它只是变得无关紧要，那又怎样？英葡联盟是世界上最古老的联盟，有600多年历史，但有多少人知道，又有谁真正在乎？
许多人都在讨论另一场冷战的到来。如果北京和华盛顿之间的唯一共识是避免热战，那么我们可能已经处于一场新的冷战中。不过，这一次的不同之处在于，这是两个大国之间的竞争，而不再是两个阵营的竞争。
这场竞争首先看的是谁犯的错误更少，其次是看谁能更好获取第三方的支持。主要战场不是在全球南方，因为美国在那里已完败给中国，尤其是在非洲和拉丁美洲。主战场也不会在印太地区，那里很少有国家愿意选边站队。新冷战的主战场将是在欧洲，那里包括美国的大部分盟友，而他们的最大贸易伙伴却是中国。
随着时间推移，跨大西洋联盟必将式微。即使美国的衰落是缓慢的，它也无法维持全球军力部署的费用。它将不得不从世界多地包括中东和欧洲撤出，把重点放在印太地区，因为美国认定中国是一个长期威胁。历届美国总统，无论是共和党还是民主党，都要求欧洲人承担更多的自身安全责任。换言之，即使欧洲不情愿，它也必须战略自主，
欧洲同时把中国当作伙伴、竞争者和系统性对手，这说明欧洲对中国的困惑，而非中国的真正本质。今年以来，欧洲多国领导人访问了中国，原因很简单：欧洲不能同时与中俄两国为敌。俄乌冲突持续时间越长，欧洲就越期待中国帮助调解。
2023年5月10日，国务委员兼外长秦刚在柏林参观波茨坦会议旧址并发表讲话。秦刚外长在签名簿上留言：维护战后国际秩序、促进世界和平繁荣、实现中国国家统一。图自中国外交部
欧洲大概会以务实的态度处理与中国和美国的关系，即根据具体情况具体应对，而不是选边站队。
只有一种情况可能从根本上改变欧中关系：台海战争。但没有任何证据表明，台湾会成为“下一个乌克兰”。
虽然大多数台湾人希望维持现状，但两岸融合的进程已经开始。据估计，2020年有120万台湾人，或台湾人口的5%，在大陆生活和工作。只要中国保持开放，这一进程就不会停止。
北京的战略耐心也体现在大陆在台岛周围的第二次军事演习中。即使北京明确将蔡英文与美众院议长麦卡锡在加州的会面视为挑衅，其反应也比麦卡锡前任佩洛西访台时要谨慎得多。此次军事演习模拟了打击，但没有进行实弹射击。
中国比谁都清楚，和平统一最符合其利益。更重要的是，和平统一仍然是可能的。
戴高乐的最大政治遗产是，戴高乐之后的每一位法国政治家似乎都是戴高乐主义者。但是，如果说戴高乐是在为法国代言，那么马克龙则是在试图为欧洲代言。时间会证明，他比冯德莱恩更有远见。在21世纪的多极世界中，只有成为一极，欧洲才最能展现其实力。
翻译：李泽西
核译：韩桦
英文原文：
French president Charles de Gaulle once said: “It will not be any European statesman who will unite Europe: Europe will be united by the Chinese.” He must be turning in his grave to see how Europe has been divided, rather than united, by the Chinese.
On a recent joint visit to China to show European solidarity, president of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen and French President Emmanuel Macron, however, seemed poles apart. Von der Leyen criticised China’s friendship with Russia and spoke of a need to “de-risk”. Macron said Europe must avoid being drawn into any US-China conflict over Taiwan, and has maintained that Europe should not become a “vassal”.
Europe’s strategic autonomy lies in how it deals with major powers such as the United States, Russia and China independently, but it won’t happen any time soon. With war raging in Ukraine, Europe is more reliant than ever on America. In reaction to Macron’s comments, US Senator Marco Rubio said if Europe would not pick a side between the US and China over Taiwan, then maybe the US should focus on Taiwan and let the Europeans handle Ukraine themselves.
However long the Ukraine war lasts, the likely outcome is an armistice. Last year, Russia declared the incorporation of Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. Although Russia can hardly have full control of the four provinces, it must have some gains to justify its war. That leaves Ukraine with a nightmare scenario: no Nato membership and the loss of further territory after Crimea.
Europe cannot possibly grow its strategic autonomy while in the shadow of Nato, the transatlantic security alliance. Macron famously said Nato was “brain-dead”. Supporters can point to Finland’s entry to say Nato is becoming more popular, but Macron is still right. The war brilliantly illustrates Nato’s Catch-22: no matter how strong, Nato does not dare launch an attack on the world’s largest nuclear-armed state, but neither can it claim defence – 31 countries ganging up on one looks ludicrous.
Nato may survive and even celebrate its centenary, but so what if it merely becomes irrelevant? The Anglo-Portuguese Alliance is the world’s oldest, at over 600 years, but how many people know, and who really cares?
Much has been said about the advent of another cold war. If the only consensus between Beijing and Washington is to avoid a hot war, then we probably are in a new cold war. What makes this one different, though, is that this is a competition between two giants, rather than two blocs.
The competition, then, is first to see who makes fewer mistakes and, then, who can win over the third parties. The battleground won’t be in the Global South, where the US has very much lost to China, especially in Africa and Latin America. It won’t be in the Indo-Pacific either, where few countries want to take sides. It will be in Europe, where the US has most of its allies and where China is the largest trading partner.
Gradually, the transatlantic alliance will relax. Even if America’s decline is gradual, it cannot afford a global military presence. It will have to retreat from around the world, including from the Middle East and Europe, to focus on the Indo-Pacific, where the US sees China as a long-term threat. Successive US presidents, Republican and Democrat alike, have asked Europeans to take greater ownership of their security. In other words, Europe has to have strategic autonomy, even if it doesn’t want to.
That Europe takes China as a partner, competitor and systemic rival at the same time says more about Europe’s confusion about China, than what China really is. This year has seen a blitz of visits to Beijing by European leaders. The reason is simple: Europe cannot afford to have sour relations with Beijing and Moscow at the same time. The longer the war, the more Europe will look to China for mediation.
Presumably, Europe will deal with China and the US with pragmatism, that is, making choices on issues case by case, rather than picking sides.
There is only one scenario that could change Europe-China relations fundamentally – a war in the Taiwan Strait. But there is no evidence that Taiwan is bound to become the next Ukraine.
Although most Taiwanese wish to maintain the status quo, the process of cross-strait integration has begun. An estimated 1.2 million Taiwanese, or 5 per cent of Taiwan’s population, lived and worked on the mainland in 2020. So long as mainland China continues to open up, this process won’t stop.
Beijing’s strategic patience is also reflected in China’s second military exercise around the island. Even if Beijing clearly took Tsai Ing-wen’s meeting with US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy in California as a provocation, its response was much more measured than when his predecessor, Nancy Pelosi, visited Taiwan, in that it simulated attacks without the live firing of weapons.
Beijing knows more than anyone that peaceful reunification is in its best interests, and more importantly, that it is still possible.
The potent legacy of de Gaulle is that every French politician after him seems to be a Gaullist. But if de Gaulle was speaking for France, Macron was trying to speak on behalf of Europe. Time will prove that he is more prescient than von der Leyen. In a 21st-century multipolar world, a Europe that stands as a pole would look its strongest.