97 percent of lithium used in the European Union and 93 percent of magnesium come from outside the bloc, with a large share tied to China, while 80 percent of solar panels are sourced from bloc countries founded last year. These figures illustrate Europe’s reliance on China for essential raw materials and key components that underpin strategic industries. During the pandemic, the European Commission began measuring this dependency by identifying 137 product categories linked to vital sectors such as healthcare, defense, and the digital spectrum. These imports could not be fully substituted by Europe’s existing industrial capacity. The Commission concluded that more than half of the import value for these products comes from China, specifically around 52 percent.
Dependency rises across areas connected to advanced production. Rare earths, fundamental chemical elements used in technological goods and weapons, electric batteries, and other crucial components for ecological transition, semiconductors and chips, active ingredients for medicines, and more all reveal a heavy tilt toward external suppliers. A growing consensus in the European Union links this situation to both digital transition needs and ecological transformation, with experts like Miguel Otero from the Elcano Institute noting that Brussels is visibly concerned about this dependence.
Problems stemming from foreign dependence became evident during the pandemic and were reinforced by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which pushed Europe to diversify its energy sources. These shocks accelerated moves toward strategic autonomy and greater economic security within the EU and heightened distrust toward a single trading partner in Asia.
Strategic autonomy is driven by concerns about China but not exclusively so. Brussels has framed China as a systemic competitor while also acknowledging the need for continued cooperation in many areas. The formal policy today calls for minimizing risks rather than pursuing complete decoupling. This stance was emphasized by the head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, at the end of March as the bloc considered the foundations of a tougher approach toward Beijing.
Criteria variety
Yet Europe’s posture toward Beijing remains far from uniform. A wide and ongoing debate crosses national borders, political alignments, and ideological lines. Some voices insist that China represents a serious threat and that dependency should be reduced, while others argue that security concerns are amplified or overstated and that the United States–China rivalry should not dictate Europe’s future.
The tension is visible in the responses of different European actors. Nordic and Baltic countries, along with some central European states, have expressed heightened concern about China as a threat to economic security. Intelligence assessments in the Netherlands warned that China poses a major risk to Dutch economic security, a sentiment echoed in other parts of Europe. Historical examples, such as Lithuania welcoming Taiwan for a representative office in 2021 and China’s response affecting Baltic imports, underscore how geopolitics shapes trade decisions.
France, led by Emmanuel Macron, has been more vocal about maintaining a degree of strategic autonomy. He has argued that the EU should not simply follow the United States in its approach to China, instead favoring a third-position strategy that preserves Europe’s own autonomy amid the evolving climate of Atlanticism in the wake of the Ukraine conflict. This stance has drawn both criticism and support on both sides of the Atlantic.
Reduce interdependence with China
Despite talk of trimming dependence, Brussels has not yet detached itself from its major markets. The two sides reached a broad set of trade and investment goals, but those accords have stalled since 2020 and have not received European Parliament approval. At the same time, Huawei has been largely sidelined from 5G deployments, while other Chinese tech players remain present, though they occupy what analysts describe as the periphery of European telecommunications networks.
Meanwhile, Italy has signaled a shift by withdrawing support from the New Silk Road initiative, while Brussels has prohibited relocating domestic firms that produce precision technologies, artificial intelligence capabilities, advanced microchips, or supercomputers to territories considered as being under the influence of systemic competitors. These measures form part of a broader economic security strategy that seeks to balance openness with resilience.
There is broad agreement that Europe still lacks sufficient industrial capability to rapidly disengage from Chinese imports in many strategic sectors. The consensus is that short-term decoupling would be very difficult. Analysts like Otero emphasize that production reallocation entails high costs and that human development benefits from specialization and comparative advantage. A move toward autarky would be a massive transformation of the European economy, requiring careful planning and a realistic assessment of the trade-offs involved.