How should European countries position themselves in the growing geopolitical and technological competition between America and China? As America’s allies in a new cold war? Or as a third force balanced between the two poles? Such questions floated in the air at the Bayerischer Hof in Munich, where world leaders, diplomats and spies gathered for their annual security policy jamboree, which ended on February 16.
The swarming hallways of the conference have traditionally been the place where the American and European elites consulted and explained their differences. These days, the gathering is a more global affair. Saudi and Iranian diplomats have slipped away; European spy masters tried to appear discreet during coffee breaks; and expensive haired congressmen made their way past the obscure prime ministers of central Europe. The hand sanitizer was splashed amidst the imminent threat of Wuhan coronavirus.
Defense Secretary Mark Esper has dismissed concerns over Russia in one line. Instead, he devoted his entire speech to convincing Europeans that China poses as serious an economic, security and ideological threat to the continent as it does to America and Asia. “China’s growth over the years has been remarkable,” said Esper, “but in many ways it is fueled by theft, coercion and exploitation of market economies, private enterprises and colleges and universities. American and European institutions and societies are the first victims of this malicious activity. “Mike Pompeo, US Secretary of State, warned that China’s interference in European politics amounted to” attacks to sovereignty ”.
For John Chipman, director general of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a think tank in London, “Essentially [Mr] Esper took advantage of his speech in Munich to announce the fact of a Chinese-American cold war with technological competition at the heart. Right now, this competition is centered on Huawei. Esper warned that if the Chinese telecommunications company is allowed to build 5G European networks, as has been authorized in Britain, and is likely to do so elsewhere – this could “compromise our communication and information-sharing capabilities, and by extension, our alliances.” (British officials see these threats as bluffs.) But US officials at the conference also warned that other emerging technologies – artificial intelligence, web servers (the “cloud”), quantum computing and communication – would soon become new battlegrounds, and potentially easy choices for Chinese tech giants have grown thanks to state subsidies and generous protection.
“They are very worried on the technological side that there is a kind of tipping point, that if Europe goes in a certain direction, it will be too late to reverse the trend”, explains Thomas Wright of the Brookings Institution, a thinker. tank in Washington, DC. Surprisingly, this concern is expressed by the administration of Mr. Trump and his opponents. Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic President of the House of Representatives, noted in Munich that “allowing the sinification of 5G would be tantamount to preferring autocracy to democracy”, a rare point of agreement with the president whose State of the Union speech she physically tore apart two weeks ago.
In many ways, Europeans are not hostile to these pleas. NATO officially put China on its agenda for the first time at a leaders’ summit in December. Alliance officials note that China is conducting naval exercises in the Baltic, making strategic investments in Europe, and has declared itself a “near Arctic” power. Intelligence officers across Europe are also increasingly wary of Chinese espionage and influence operations. On February 12, Estonian foreign intelligence released an annual report that mentioned China more than 100 times, noting that Chinese investment and technological dominance “increasingly threaten the security of Estonia.” Many European diplomats are nervously pointing to Sweden, where the Chinese ambassador attacked the Swedish press last month as a “light boxer who causes a quarrel with an 86 kg heavy boxer”, part of another scheme in addition to familiar with bullying and bullying.
What is less clear is how to react. Some European diplomats and legislators want their countries to heed American warnings. In Britain, which said last month that it would allow Huawei to play a limited role in less sensitive parts of its 5G network, influential conservative MPs rebelled against their government’s decision. In Germany, which is moving in the same direction, conservative legislators have teamed up with other parties to do the same. “But many do not share the perception of the threat and think that China, Russia and America are all problems for Europeans,” said Thorsten Benner, director of the Global Public Policy Institute, a think tank in Berlin.
It appears that Frank-Walter Steinmeier, German president (largely ceremonial), opened the conference by calling on Europe to “invent its own response to major change in the spheres of power and influence”. The continent “must find its own balance with China, finding a balance between increasing competition between systems and necessary cooperation,” said Steinmeier, rejecting Pompeo’s brutal choice between “a West free “and” illiberal alternatives “. Germany, which is preparing to host a grand summit of EU-China leaders in September, hopes to cooperate with China on issues such as trade rules and climate change, even if it competes in other areas.
The suspicion is particularly deep on technology. Esper urged American and European companies to work together “to develop alternative 5G solutions”, but many Europeans see it as a cynical effort to position themselves at the top in an area where two European companies, Nokia and Ericsson, are world leaders. , explains Mr. Benner. On February 6, William Barr, the United States’ attorney general, proposed that America buy a majority stake in the two companies. This suggestion prompted both cheerfulness and rolling eyes. Europeans note that America has not made similar offers in areas where American businesses are ahead, such as cloud computing.
Some former German diplomats suggest that Europe could act as an intermediary between America and China, in order to ease tensions. Others want Europe to transform itself into a third force capable of resisting the two powers. Emmanuel Macron, President of France, is the standard bearer of this approach. During a free-wheeling question and answer session, he repudiated Pompeo’s insistence that the West “won”, said that “the era of ubiquitous global American police is over” and renewed its longstanding call for “a Europe capable of protecting the base”. of its sovereignty ”.
Protection against whom? From China, yes. Macron defined his controversial openness to Russia in part as an effort to distance Vladimir Putin, its president, from “Chinese hegemony.” But Mr. Macron also wants to be protected from what he sees as Trump’s American fantasy and predation. “The Americans are investing much faster in the choices of the future, the Chinese too,” warned Macron. “If they are right, in ten or fifteen years, they will have the industries, the standards … where we will have fallen behind.”
American officials see it as a terribly false equivalence between a democratic ally and a despotic rival. Macron’s European allies tend to nod at the general idea, but disagree on the details. “France is ahead of Germany by being comfortable with the concept of European sovereignty vis-à-vis all the major external powers, namely the United States, China, Russia”, explains Bruno Tertrais, deputy director of the Foundation for Strategic Research, a French thought. -tank. “Several allies are uncomfortable with the idea that all three of us are in the same basket.” This is especially because American tanks and troops remain essential to defend the physical borders of Europe. Exercise Defender Europe 20, a massive U.S. military exercise to strengthen the continent – and the largest such exercise in 25 years – is underway.
The result can be compromises, such as partial bans on Huawei, that don’t satisfy anyone. “The minimum consensus could be to invest in European technological capabilities to achieve greater sovereignty,” says Benner, “but even on the softball issues of 5G, which Europeans lead, there is no of real consensus because [the German chancellor Angela] Merkel wants to continue keeping the door open for Huawei. I don’t see a clear path to unity. “Few want to be caught in the Sino-American crossfire, especially if it delays technological projects or costs money.” This is not seen in Europe as a new cold war, “concludes Tertrais.” And if it does, Europe doesn’t want it. “