China courts Europe as transatlantic alliance fractures under Trump

China is seeking to position Europe as an independent pole in a future multipolar world order, capitalizing on the deepening rift between the United States and its European allies under President Donald Trump.

Trump returned to office in January 2025 and has threatened to capture Greenland and questioned NATO's integrity after European allies backed off from joining Trump's war on Iran. The transatlantic alliance has slid into crisis, creating an opening Beijing is actively exploiting.

China envisions a multipolar world and intends to work alongside Russia and other non-aligned nations. Beijing sees Europe's two veto votes in the UN Security Council — held by the United Kingdom and France — and the EU single market as strategic assets, particularly as Trump's trade war pressures China's export-oriented economy.

"These days, Europe is losing its significance in global politics and the economy," a law student shouted from the audience during a recent political TV talk show broadcast on Shanghai Media Group (SMG), a Chinese state media outlet. "Are the European elite and the public aware of this?"

Ding Chun, a professor at Fudan University and chairman of the Shanghai Institute for European Studies, said the US used its dominance at the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank to promote economic programs in Latin America and Europe, cementing a hegemonic position known as the "Washington Consensus." "But times have changed," Ding told a forum in Shanghai in mid-April. "A lot of things don't work the way they used to, even in Europe. The younger generation in Europe is fed up with the political establishment. Social media makes election outcomes unpredictable."

On April 29, UN General Assembly President Annalena Baerbock visited Beijing. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi used the visit to call for reforming UN institutions into a multipolar world government. "China is happy to support you in your continued leadership," Wang told Baerbock. A Chinese Foreign Ministry statement said China plays "an important leading role in upholding multilateralism, safeguarding international law, and promoting the three pillars of peace, development, and human rights."

Vuk Jeremic, a former UN General Assembly president and now a professor at Sciences Po in Paris, told the SMG talk show that transatlantic ties were forged on the common threat of Soviet Communism. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, Europe enjoyed decades of prosperity, he said, but "in the meantime, quite a lot went wrong. Crises began to pile up." He cited the 2007–2008 global financial crisis, the 2015 migration crisis, Brexit in 2020, and Trump's first presidency from 2017 to 2021. "The current situation can hardly be described as ideal," he added.

Zhang Weiwei, director of the China institute at Fudan University, told the talk show it will be difficult for Europe to "decouple" from the US. He said Europe missed out on developing Industry 4.0 — the term for digital and networked industrial production, coined in 2011 at Germany's Hannover Messe — and has no top-20 internet high-tech company. "Years ago, people in China believed they could learn from Industry 4.0 in Germany to perfect Chinese industry," Zhang said. "Today, no one talks about it anymore."

Zhang said Europe is realizing that "some of its major priorities are simply unattainable without economic and technological cooperation with China." He attributed this shift partly to "the humiliating way Donald Trump has treated Europe since taking office for a second term in January."