“Europe does not use its single market enough as a political lever and militarily the continent does not amount to much. Our democracy and free market will be besieged on all sides. Meanwhile, the West’s willingness to protect our way of life is extremely limited. If we do nothing, we will remain a weakling in ‘the big game’.”
Speaking at InvestmentOfficer.nl’s 15th Fondsevent on Monday, Jonathan Holslag, professor of international relations at the Free University of Brussels, explained that, for a long time, the West ruled the world stage, but the limits of that power are now rapidly becoming apparent. “We have neglected the pillars of our model of society,” Holslag said.
Holslag, author of the book From Wall to Wall, believes that Europe will remain a weakling in “the big game” if it cannot unitedly deploy its economic superiority.
Decoupling from China
Part of the defence strategy, according to Holslag, is decoupling our economy from China. “China’s economic policy is based on milking the global market for as long as possible,” Holslag said, adding that China will continue to do so “until it is large and important enough to overturn the current balance of power and operate autonomously”.
“The leap China made in recent decades was accompanied by the West’s expectation that it would embrace the free market,” Holslag said, but its authoritarian and territorial ambitions, he noted, have not been abandoned. “That is a big threat to neighbouring countries. That creates a new, harsh political reality.”
Ed Kronenburg, former ambassador for the Netherlands in Beijing and Paris, said he sees little point in severing ties with the Asian superpower. “You cannot think China away. Despite all the rhetoric, in practice there are still huge trade relations between the two countries,” Kronenburg said.
Europe is naive
Kronenburg and Holslag find common ground in Europe’s naivety towards geopolitics. Kronenburg: “The Chinese are long-term planners. The West was under the naive assumption that if we involved the country in the WTO, we could get a grip on China. But make no mistake, China only changes if China itself wants it to. All attempts in history to change China have failed.”
Kronenburg acknowledged that Europe does not have enough military resources or willpower to pull Europe’s economic weight. “Because of what is happening in Ukraine, we have stepped back in time 75 years. We are in a situation where we as Europe need to be able to look after ourselves. The Chinese started self-sufficiency in as many areas as possible in 2018 just to outsmart the US. Europe should do the same, and quickly.”
A superpower like China always thinks from power, Kronenburg explained. “We in the West definitely don’t do that. Usually that does not have to be a problem, but in the current climate you have to avoid having to choose, as Europe, between the American power block and the Chinese power block.”
Kronenburg: “In his view, Europe is taking a huge risk right now. Who says America will always support us militarily? In the worst-case scenario, Trump will soon be back in the White House and Putin will be in the Kremlin. Then Europe will be on its own. We are totally not ready for that, and we are already in injury time.”
Russia
Both speakers are deeply concerned about the further course of the war in Ukraine. According to Holslag, Putin cannot afford to lose and the Ukrainian counter-offensive has hurt the Russians in the depths of their honour. “Putin will have to settle the war quickly and it is highly doubtful that he will succeed,’ Holslag says. ‘It is likely to be a very bloody conflict.”
“Very worrying is the fact that we in the West do not know the command lines of tactical nuclear weapons,” he adds. “We don’t know whether there are elements in the Russian military that are prepared to deploy such weapons.”
“Thanks to Biden, the Russians have not been able to get beyond Ukraine,” Kronenburg says. “But you cannot assume that such support will remain there. We have a window of opportunity of a few years to arm ourselves, and we probably won’t manage to develop that safety net in that short time. Our defence budgets are small, nationally coordinated and support for expansion is absent.”