Europe Needs To Re-evaluate Its Importance And Its American Vassalization

Europe lives in a delusion:

What Europe thinks about China matters little. China needs Russia, which supplies food, fuel and minerals far more than it needs Europe. Further, Europe cannot be a reliable partner to China, because European countries are American satrapies. They don’t actually have independent foreign policy if the US puts pressure on, and the Ukraine war has tied them far closer to America. At the same time Europe is losing chunks of its industrial base to America due to increased input costs due to the cut-off from Russian resources.

Europe is an important trading partner for Europe, particular a buyer of European exports, but the lesson of Russia/Ukraine is that such ties are not reliable. As the US puts more and more sanctions on China (who has invaded nobody) and Europe cooperates such ties become clear sunk costs: nice to have, but nothing to count on.

The US is treating China as its main threat, and girding for war, while trying to “friend-shore” industry away from China. They are arming Taiwan, and sending senior politicians to Taiwan. Sanctions proliferate. Europe does not stand against this.

So, Europe cannot be relied on, they cooperated with sanctions even before the Ukraine war. Russia, on the other hand, can be relied on because they need China as much or more than China needs them.

Further, the reason the US hasn’t gone full trade war with China is simple: the results for America would be disastrous. Many important items are now made entirely or predominantly in China. China would hurt from losing its second biggest customer (after ASEAN)  but the US would be crippled overnight. This applies as well to the EU. Shipping basic industry to someone you then decide to treat as an enemy is like handing someone your gun, then saying “I hate you and I want to kill you.”

Not smart.

China has the US and Europe over a barrel. Decoupling is not possible right now without catastrophe. Either the decoupling efforts succeed over a period of years (ten to fifteen at a minimum) or they don’t work, but China either gets time or if decoupling happens before that, it starts with the advantage of actually having physical plant and with its enemies crippled.

But Europe will have no real sway with China for as long as it is clearly a bunch of American vassal states. There is no way to make a deal with Europe which will be kept, because Europe does not have autonomy. Everyone knows that if America shoves hard, the Europeans will side with the US.

In any case, China has become the world’s premier auto exporter. Its first commercial jets are now rolling out. It is catching up in semiconductor manufacture. It is expanding trade with Africa and South America and now trades more than the US or Europe on both continents. It has made friends with both Iran and Saudi Arabia. Europe is losing exports and losing its technological advantage. Soon there Europe will mostly a customer, not a necessary supplier and in any case Europe, cooperating with American sanctions on China has already shown it is not a reliable supplier.

Given all this, European politicians, acting as if it is still 1970 or 2000, can croak and threaten and scold all they want. More sanctions are coming, China needs Russia and if China abandoned Russia, Europe would not be a reliable ally anyway.

This being the case, the odds of China abandoning Russia are essentially zero.

As for the Europeans, they need to understand that if they act as American vassals they will be treated as American vassals, which means no one who the US considers an enemy, and the US definitely considers China an enemy, can ever trust any deal with them.

Europe has made its bed. It had chances over the last twenty years to become its own power bloc, to declare itself free of American domination. It chose not to. It rises and falls with America, except that America has already shown it will cannibalize European industry and concerns whenever there is benefit to America.This is not the post-war “shared prosperity” period for the Western powers, it is dog-eat-dog and Europeans are living in a fantasy world. Even within Europe nations are acting against group interest.

The European garden is set to be filled with weeds and Europeans need to figure out a way to do more than manage decline. They might start by realizing that their interests and America’s interests are significantly different, and they might wish to stop with the ridiculous sanctimonious speeches to the Chinese. The Chinese are not abandoning a reliable ally who provides what they can’t make themselves for a few more years of not-very good relations with a Europe who obeys their enemy.

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