There's a Crack Between the U.S. and Europe Over China

In several new strategy documents, the Trump administration argues that America needs to gear up for prolonged geopolitical competition with China. This shift in U.S. policy is welcome -- even if it so far remains mostly rhetorical -- because it reflects the growing threat that a revisionist, authoritarian China poses to American interests in the Asia-Pacific and to the liberal international system more broadly. Yet even though U.S.-China competition is primarily a transpacific matter, a transatlantic divergence may hamper American strategy on how to handle Beijing. America’s European allies have long been its most important partners, but today, Europeans and Americans often see the China challenge in very different ways.

Transatlantic differences over China are not new, of course. Outrage over the Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989 was stronger in America than in Europe. In 2005, the European Union nearly lifted its arms embargo on China, maintaining it only after last-minute intervention by President George W. Bush’s administration. In recent years, however, the transatlantic gap has grown larger, for several reasons.