Europe Wants to ‘De-Risk’ Its China Relationship. Or Does It?

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Von der Leyen lays out a vision of de-risking E.U.-China relations

In a landmark speech in late March, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called formore cohesivenessand faster trade action to reduce Europe’s reliance on China. Previously, she had hinted at the need for more defensive trade tools, such as outbound investment controls on critical tech and enhanced export controls to complement existing inbound investment screening mechanisms. At the same time, she has characterized the European Union’s approach to addressing economic interdependence with China as “de-risking,” implicitly contrasting it with U.S. “decoupling,” commonly understood to imply a more definitive separation.

Europeans and Americans have differing views on economic statecraft

The turn of phrase is apt: Our data shows that, compared with U.S. adults, Europeans on average are slightly less enthusiastic about using such tools, including inbound and outbound investment screening measures and export controls. But more Europeans than not support them, with inbound investment screening in the lead.

Southern Europeans are less likely to support de-risking

National security in the European Union is the responsibility of individual E.U. member states. Much like current investment screening policies are developed and implemented by national authorities and subsequently coordinated at the E.U. level, implementation of the latest policies under discussion — including an outbound investment screening mechanism — would also be the responsibility of member states. As such, country-by-country differences in public support for these measures are important.

Among a subset of major E.U. countries, we see clear evidence of north-south differences. Despite Germany and Franceexporting更多的货物到中国,每个国家的人们都勒ss averse to using these particular tools than Spanish and Italian adults. In some sense, this is good news for European policymakers pushing for de-risking: The countries that would screen the largest volume of transactions and trade flows would also encounter less popular resistance to doing so. On the other hand, it indicates significant difficulties lie ahead for von der Leyen’s vision of E.U.-wide coherence on these policies.

Mirroring their hesitancy to implement export controls and outbound investment screening mechanisms, Spanish and Italian adults are more likely than not to favor unaltered economic engagement with China if reducing relations would entail economic losses, and they do so at higher rates than their northern neighbors. By contrast, more French adults than not want to decrease economic engagement with China even if it carries costs. The German public is torn, with about equal shares favoring the status quo and decreasing engagement.

Room for change, in either direction

As elected officials and trade negotiators learned the hard way duringmass protestsagainst the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, esoteric policy topics that the public usually ignores can quickly enter into the common discourse and become politicized — think of chlorinated chicken or, more recently, semiconductor supply chains.

Large shares of European adults still don’t have well-formed views on export controls and investment screening, whether inbound or outbound. But with high-profile cases in the news, like aproposed banon the inbound investment of TikTok in the United States, or new Dutch export controls on sales ofASML’s most advanced lithography equipment to China, undecided shares could quickly shift their views to one side or the other. For E.U. policymakers and companies with a dog in this particular fight, southern Europe is most worth watching for signs that it may play spoiler to von der Leyen's de-risking vision.