At the World Economic Forum in Davos this week, French President Emmanuel Macron delivered a message to Beijing and the United States: “China is welcome, but what we need is more Chinese foreign investment in Europe, in key sectors,” he said.
This follows a similar pattern of European diplomacy. For two decades, European leaders dismissed warnings about Moscow’s intentions while deepening their economic dependence on Russian gas and oil. Now, as Paris courts Chinese investment in critical sectors of the French economy, the continent is walking the same path with Beijing.
Over the years, Western European leaders essentially excused growing Russian aggression. They pushed forward with their Russian energy dependence through projects such as Nord Stream II despite repeated warnings from Washington about strategic vulnerability. They blocked American attempts to expand NATO’s security umbrella to Ukraine. When Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Europe was in a bind. It needed energy, but it also needed to sanction Russia. The lesson, one would think, should have been clear: Allowing an adversary to dominate critical sectors represents deferred strategic suicide.
Yet Macron’s Davos speech suggests Europe is making the same error again. His “welcoming China” appears as a response to American pressure over Greenland. Macron is telling Washington, ‘We will work with your adversaries if you threaten us’. But the choice of dependence on China is a product of weakness and absent resolve. After all, rather than building real defense capabilities, passing long-overdue structural economic reforms, and becoming a force to be reckoned with, France thinks the way forward is allowing Beijing to corrupt and coerce its institutions, economies, and critical sectors.
Europe’s Greenland response perfectly illustrates these delusions in European thinking. Chinese company Shenghe Resources acquired a 12.5% stake in Greenland Minerals’ Kvanefjeld rare earth project. China attempted to invest in Greenland’s airports and satellite stations. Meanwhile, Russia operates 30 to 40 military facilities across its Arctic coastline, positioning bombers and submarines within striking distance of North Atlantic shipping lanes.
While ignoring Chinese and Russian activities in Greenland, Brussels scrambled to appear responsive to American concerns by deploying a mockingly small contingent, sending a roughly symbolic 30 to 40 troops to the island for a show. Like that deployment, the talk of strategic autonomy is designed for the headlines. Europe is not taking its own defense seriously. The continent would struggle to deploy even 20,000 troops for peacekeeping.
True European rearmament would be very expensive. But that would be impossible without reforming the European welfare state, deregulating economies, and increasing growth, something Europe is unwilling to do. Brussels likely believes it can simply wait out Donald Trump’s presidency, expecting America to return with mea culpas. But that is unlikely to happen. Trump’s rhetoric is inflammatory, and his negotiation tactics are infuriating, but his concerns about Europe have been shared across administrations. American strategic attention is permanently shifting to Southeast Asia, where Washington needs partners with military capability who can either assist in the Pacific or, at a minimum, hold the line against Russia if both adversaries challenge the Western powers simultaneously.
Instead of preparing for that moment, make no mistake that if Ukraine’s war ended tomorrow, the Europeans would quickly forget the Russian threat and resume their talks and trade with Moscow. The Kremlin knows this. Russia dismisses European military power and will treat any European peacekeeping contingent as irrelevant. This is precisely why American guarantees remain critical and why Europe’s strategic frivolity is so dangerous.
Europe faces a fundamental choice. It can invest in becoming powerful, or it can accept growing strategic irrelevance.