‘America First’ has frayed the ties between the ‘European West’ and the US, giving the former more agency in its China policy

Over the past several months, a notable procession of European leaders has traveled to China, underscoring a renewed push for high-level political contact even amid strategic tension. French President Emmanuel Macron made a state visit in early December 2025, capped by an official joint statement that signaled an intent to keep channels open on trade and global issues. Spain’s King Felipe VI also visited China in late 2025, reinforcing Madrid’s interest in maintaining stable economic ties. Ireland’s Taoiseach Micheál Martin followed with a five-day trip to Beijing and Shanghai in early January 2026, the first Irish leader to do so in 14 years. Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Keir Starmer arrived in China on Jan 29 for a multiday visit, taking the trip as an effort to “reset” and stabilize a relationship that had sharply deteriorated in recent years.

So why are European leaders flocking to China?

To the casual observer, this may look like a sudden outbreak of “China-philia”. In reality, it is a symptom of a structural fracture that is occurring inside the single, unified “West”. For decades, the “West” was running on geopolitical and ideological autopilot. On issues ranging from the sanctity of free trade to the rise of China, the United States and Europe moved with a reflex. There were bickers over the details, but the frame was essentially the same.

However, under the pressure of a second Donald Trump term, the transatlantic reflex has snapped. Europe and US interests and values are no longer assumed to be naturally aligned; they are increasingly distinct, and sometimes directly antagonistic.

First, last year’s US National Security Strategy castigated Europe for “civilizational erasure” and “regulatory suffocation”, signaling that the US no longer treats the transatlantic alliance as a pillar of its national security, but rather as a burden. Even more striking is the document’s explicit call to cultivate “internal resistance” within European nations, which in effect legitimizes and encourages domestic forces to undermine their own governments’ policies in ways that align with the US’ preferences. In tone and intent, it resembles a softer variant of the regime-change playbook the US once reserved for adversaries and rivals. It is not how “the Western countries” used to behave toward one another.

Second, the Greenland episode drives the wedge even deeper. When the White House demands the annexation of Greenland to the point that it is willing to use force, and recasts an ally’s territorial integrity as something negotiable and coercible, Europeans hear a stark message: allies of the US are objects at the mercy of US unilateralism. It is also precisely the kind of “inside-the-alliance” threat that the “West” was never designed to handle. Alliance rests on an unspoken premise that members do not coerce one another over territory; collective defense is built to deter external aggression, not to restrain pressure from the hegemon within. This is why some European capitals are quietly boosting “Arctic security” cooperation, rather than pretending this can be absorbed as routine NATO business.

Third, the divergence is most visible in the collapse of the shared consensus on free trade. For 80 years, the West was the champion of globalization. Today, the US has pivoted toward aggressive protectionism, using massive tariffs as a cudgel not just against rivals, but against allies to extract territory or political concessions. For Europe, this is an existential threat.

So the “West” is beginning to split into two halves, a “European West” and an “American West” with two increasingly incompatible sets of instincts about power, order and legitimacy.

The “US West” stands where alliance commitments and norms are subordinate to perceived strategic necessity; leverage (tariffs, threats, etc) is legitimate even against partners.

The “European West”, by contrast, is anchored — sometimes hypocritically, but still structurally — around rules and predictability: sovereignty as a hard constraint, economic openness constrained by regulation, and multilateral frameworks as the way to manage unpredictability in an interdependent world.

Once European countries internalize that their alignment with the US is not automatic, political space to run their own China policies expands.

Indeed, Europe has a stronger reason to run its autonomous China policy because following the US unconditionally undermines Europe’s own welfare. When the West was united, staying in lockstep with the US brought clear benefits: credible security and smoother access to the US market. In today’s “two Wests” reality, that deal is weaker. The rewards of automatic alignment are smaller, while the costs — lost trade, higher economic risk, and domestic political backlash — are bigger.

In such a strategic environment, engaging China becomes a necessary hedge because Europe can no longer treat the US as a single, stable anchor. When the traditional guarantor turns volatile, sensible states widen their options: They keep alternative channels open, spread their dependencies and make sure no one partner can hold them hostage. Europe seems to be doing the same. Maintaining workable ties with China in trade, diplomacy, and selective cooperation on global governance is a way to build shock absorbers when US policy becomes more transactional and unpredictable. In an era of weaponized interdependence, engagement helps Europe preserve optionality: the ability to act without being forced into a single binary choice set by someone else.

None of this means Europe will choose China over the US. But the emergence of “two Wests” does mean — inevitably — that Europe has a clear incentive to cultivate a China policy that reflects European interests. Used wisely, that is a net gain: for Europe, it restores strategic agency and reduces vulnerability to policy swings across the Atlantic; for China, it creates a more stable, predictable partner in Europe — one able to pursue pragmatic cooperation on trade, investment, climate and global governance. In that sense, a less unconditional, more self-authored European approach can make EU-China engagement more realistic, more resilient and ultimately more constructive.

He Yun is an associate professor at the School of Public Policy at Hunan University. Vasilis Trigkas is an assistant professor of global affairs jointly appointed by the Schwarzman College and the School of Social Sciences at Tsinghua University.

The authors contributed this article to China Watch, a think tank powered by China Daily. The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.

Contact the editor at editor@chinawatch.cn.