Europe can’t decide how to unplug from China

How should Europe handle China? The continent is trying to decide. After decades of pursuing trade, Europeans are pondering how much to decouple. Their closest ally, America, wavers between China-bashing and war talk on the one hand, and de-escalation and partial detente on the other. Individual European countries struggle to agree with each other.

Last week Josep Borrell, the eu’s chief diplomat, urged Europe’s foreign ministers in a letter to find “a coherent strategy” in the face of “a hardening of the us-China competition”. But it is far from clear what that strategy might be, or whether Europe would remain so closely aligned with America in the event of a war over Taiwan.