The EU will assert its role in global geopolitics only when it gets rid of US influence
The EU adopted an Indo-Pacific Strategy in April 2021. The conclusions of the ad hoc commission that drafted the strategy state that the EU recognises the growing importance of the region and is committed to strengthening its role in cooperation with regional partners.
The Indo-Pacific region (a concept introduced by the Americans relatively recently and replacing the notion of Asia-Pacific) represents one of the economic and strategic centres of the world. It produces 60 per cent of the world’s GDP.
The EU justifies its interest in this part of the world by arguing that cooperation in the Indo-Pacific region is crucial to the global agenda of the international community, including achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals; here Brussels recalls humanitarian aid, tackling climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution, and promoting compliance with international law, including human rights and freedom of navigation.
However, the focus of the new EU strategy is on the South China Sea. According to a press release from the EU External Action Service, “EU foreign ministers have decided to strengthen the EU’s strategic orientation, presence and action in the Indo-Pacific … in order to promote stability, security, prosperity and sustainable development in the region through the promotion of democracy, the rule of law, human rights and international law. Familiar rhetorical figures!
Two things stand out. First, the EU is copying the US approach. For 2022, the Pentagon has planned investments in the Indo-Pacific region totalling $66 billion. On 9 June, the Pentagon chief said their agency had completed a strategy review on China.
“The initiatives I am putting forward today are embedded in the US government’s broader approach to China,” Lloyd Austin said. – The efforts I am directing today will improve the Department’s ability to activate our network of allies and partners, strengthen deterrence, and accelerate the development of new operational concepts, new capabilities, and future force structure…” The US Secretary of Defence will directly oversee Pentagon policy, operations and intelligence related to China.
This realignment is related to China’s growing influence. Part of the new strategy is to intensify the quadrilateral security dialogue between the US, India, Japan and Australia.
The EU supports the US line on all these issues. And this is the second thing to pay attention to. Starting with the EU’s March 2019 report “A Strategic Perspective on EU-China Relations”, which referred to China’s “systematic and hostile promotion of alternative governance models”, Brussels perceives anti-China models developed in Washington. The G7 summit in Britain on 11 June also discussed coordination against China.
Proponents of the EU joining the U.S. in engaging with China argue that Europe should not remain toothless. The same position is held by India. Shreya Sinha of Jawaharlal Nehru University says: “Beijing continues to threaten the security of the region by claiming undisputed sovereignty over parts of the space in the South China Sea. The historical relationship between Europe and China reveals numerous instances in which the EU and China have found themselves at odds. Moreover, in recent years, the EU has feared … a Chinese attack on Hong Kong’s independence and China’s pursuit of a warrior-wolf line in all its foreign policy… The emergence of the EU’s Indo-Pacific Strategy gives the EU access to the region that defines the current global order. It is imperative that the EU does not become a toothless tiger here…”
Such statements sound more like incitement than a wish for the EU to be sovereign in making crucial decisions. The EU can become the acting face of the world geopolitics only when it gets rid of the US influence. Irrespective of whether a strategy for the Pacific, the Indian subcontinent or the Arctic is in question.
Meanwhile, Lyle Goldstein of the US Naval War College points to a large number of contradictions in the US Indo-Pacific strategy, which is reminiscent of the “unipolar world memory” of 1992. He writes: “A fundamental change in the regional balance of power should lead to a new US strategy based on realism and restraint. The Biden administration should not lose sight of the fundamental flaws in the previous strategy. The new team would be wise to abandon the old strategy and start afresh.
Leonid Savin, FSK