Step by step, Europe has flubbed their chances to remain relevant since China’s rise, and now it may be too late for the EU to regain its clout in the global order. Is the dream of a multipolar world coming to a premature end?
Europe’s geopolitical irrelevance has calcified into fact. As global power alignments crystallize, the world reveals not a multipolar balance, but a tightening bipolar order—dominated by the United States and China, while the European Union drifts into oblivion.
How China’s Silence Became a Verdict
China’s downgrading of Europe accelerated in 2024. The final substantive EU-China summit took place in December 2023, with no top leader meetings since. This political disconnect between major trading partners has become entrenched. Meanwhile, Brussels spent 2024 pushing through economic security measures and invested its whole political capital on China into backing a U.S. initiative: tariffs on Chinese EVs.
The reasons why Beijing no longer treats Europe as a serious counterpart remain a guarded secret within the Forbidden City walls. What is visible is that China no longer views the bloc coherent enough to serve as a credible geopolitical actor.
During Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez's visit in China in April, Chinese President Xi Jinping called on "China and the EU to fulfill their international responsibilities, work together to safeguard economic globalization and the international trading environment, and jointly resist unilateral bullying.”
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s April visit to China illustrated this vividly. His arrival in the Chinese capital triggered no diplomatic tremor—not in Brussels corridors, not in Washington crisis rooms, not even within Beijing’s own political observatory. Madrid’s parochial news cycle framed the visit through its partisan lens, missing what seasoned observers reading the choreography of Chinese diplomacy immediately saw: China no longer expects Europe to matter.
Xi received Sánchez with ceremonial precision—strictly by the script. No initiatives launched, no substantive dialogue, no sign of meaningful political engagement beyond extracting another pronouncement that “Spain firmly upholds the one-China policy.”
The Spanish leader, heading a coalition bound by necessity rather than coherence and shadowed by corruption investigations into his entourage, returned empty-handed—cloaked in the pretense of statesmanship. Amid the fiercest global contest for influence—during the most consequential moment of Xi’s presidency—China saw no value in capitalizing on a visit from the EU’s fourth-largest economy. Xi’s restrained cordiality spoke louder than any communiqué: if Europe cannot act as a unified entity, it will not be treated as one.
China once valued Europe as a potential counterweight to American pressure. That premise has been abandoned. Beijing has seen the performance too often: leaders arrive individually, invoke strategic autonomy, pose for photos, then depart without consequence. Trade will flow, receptions will be held, flattering diplomatic language will surface—but Beijing has accepted that significant political engagement is over, for now.
How America’s Disdain Became a Dismissal
Europe can’t look across the Atlantic for refuge from this diminishment—quite the opposite. The paradigm shift crystallized at the 2025 Munich Security Conference, where U.S. Vice President JD Vance openly dismissed Europe’s global significance. He mocked the EU and its policies while looking their leaders straight in the eye, yet no one stood up to defend the Union or speak for the citizens they represent. No rebuttal. No defence. Reactions surfaced only later across social media. Vance required no persuasive brilliance; his European counterparts made his case for him.
Then came Trump’s “reciprocal duties”—unilateral tariffs targeting the global community, imposed from day one on European industries. These measures amount to an assault built on fabricated grievances. Brussels capitulated before offering resistance: first watering down its response to steel and aluminum tariffs, then shelving even those limited countermeasures while Washington kept its own in place. EU leadership insists on repeating its wish to negotiate hoping for a lucky break, as if nothing were happening—turning potential resolve into plain capitulation.
The Bipolar Reality Takes Shape
The emerging reality is an international cosmos dominated by two powers with unmatched global reach. As political scientist Yan Xuetong argues, we do not inhabit a multipolar system seeking equilibrium but a bipolar order shaped by economic and political forces no other actor can match. And the gap widens every day.
The real contest is U.S.–China; all else is secondary. U.S.–EU relations lack the geopolitical weight of the Indo-Pacific, where Washington’s focus has remained since Obama’s 2011 Pivot to Asia. Designed to contain China, that shift marked the beginning of Europe’s steady decline in U.S. strategic thinking. The message was clear, repeated, and consistent. Europe heard it—but failed to respond.
Trump 2.0 has launched the battle through the economy. Technology dominated his first term and will remain central, as the high-tech bifurcation between blocs is already underway. What remains unclear is how Trump envisions sustaining U.S. geopolitical supremacy in the long run.
Yet while Washington sharpens its tools, Beijing has already shown how pressure can be repurposed into power. When Trump started his trade offensive and tore through alliances with methodical determination, Xi did not flinch. China absorbed the economic blows and turned confrontation into consolidation—using the trade war to build momentum, tighten domestic legitimacy, and reinforce its internal support (thank you, Jason Yip). Beijing is proving to endure American bullying and emerge stronger.
Perhaps the Chinese Communist Party sees hegemonic decline theory as a reflection of U.S. reality in motion. Others have faced American pressure, but only China pushed back. No other power—not Japan, not India, not Brussels—has shown comparable resolve. Beijing anticipates economic pain but remains confident of ultimate victory. Meanwhile, Europe’s conciliatory gestures register in Washington and Beijing not as diplomacy, but as evidence of vulnerability. As a result, two powers remain locked in confrontation—each convinced it can go the distance alone.
China’s Strategic Patience
Europe’s diplomatic failures stem from its own decided structural invisibility, not circumstantial missteps. At times, it even advances others’ agendas: In early 2025, Brussels turned to Delhi, sending an unprecedented delegation of 21 commissioners—the largest ever dispatched beyond European borders. The message to Beijing was transparent: Brussels is scouring for alternatives instead of confronting once and for all its incoherent China policy, precisely when clarity was most needed.
Beijing responded appointing Lu Shaye as its Special Representative for European Affairs—underscoring growing contempt. As ambassador to France, Lu had questioned the sovereignty of European post-Soviet states in 2023 and implied Crimea was originally Russian, echoing Kremlin narratives. Both statements triggered outrage across Europe, where he is regarded with categorical disdain.
This sequence might suggest that Europe no longer merits priority status. Beijing won’t sever ties—it simply lets them wither. The logic is unambiguous: the contest for global primacy will not unfold between blocs, but between two dominant powers. Europe is no longer a protagonist—only a potential swing space.
Beijing believes Trump’s decoupling from Europe will, in time, drive the bloc back toward China. In the meantime, it focuses solely on the U.S., trusting that long-standing initiatives like the Belt and Road—embedded across continents—extend Chinese influence without military pacts or ideological adherence.
While America demands loyalty—“stand with us”—China avoids allegiance, ensuring others remain “not against us.” It has never pursued classical bloc formation; yet through trade and infrastructure, it engages more nations than any rival, sidestepping the coercive architecture of U.S. hard-power alliance model, built on over 750 military installations across more than 80 countries.
China wagers instead on ambiguity. Its objective isn’t rallying explicit support but preventing alignments that might crystallize against it—keeping options fluid, loyalties ambiguous, decisive choices postponed. A strategy yielding tangible results. As the Sánchez visit demonstrated, China plays the long game—measured, dispassionate, positioned two steps ahead. The consequences are visible: amid the most significant geopolitical realignment in decades, China sees no gain in moving closer to Europe, with no role to play.
Reclaiming European Relevance
The unsparing reality European leaders must confront is that invisibility equals irrelevance. So long as EU states pursue individual diplomatic pilgrimages without coherent common purposes, they will return empty-handed—excluded from the calculus of power.
Europe must begin to recover geopolitical weight through interlinked actions aimed at restoring coherence. First, it must adopt a clear, consistent China policy that moves beyond opportunism and signals intent. In parallel, it should establish a rapid-response unit empowered to bypass unanimity rules, enabling swift, collective decisions in geopolitical crises. As Trump helpfully reminds them, a European financial shield is also needed—one that links retaliation to defined economic harm, triggering automatic countermeasures when targeted by tariffs or sanctions and eliminating political hesitation from the response.
China’s message is unmistakable: Europe can claim significance—but only through unified voice and coherent action. The door stands neither locked nor fully ajar. Beijing now measures geopolitical might solely against Washington—the only power it acknowledges as an equal. Can Europe reclaim its place among history’s architects? The answer lies in its ability to forge genuine unity. Otherwise, it will become a labeled piece on the global chessboard—present but powerless, observed but no longer influential in shaping humanity’s future course.
