Abstract
Popular perceptions of China in Europe have clearly shifted over the past few years. This article builds on the literature that assesses how narratives of China emerge and change, and how they influence policy on how best to respond to China’s rise. We construct an analytical framework in which we identify two different types of reasons for change in dominant perceptions, underlying and precipitating, and a transmitting process (narrative diffusion). We argue that four underlying and three precipitating reasons together with active diffusion of a particular academic and policy narrative explain why dominant perceptions of China changed in Europe to predominantly negative within a relatively short time period. We explore what foundational assumptions this dominant narrative depends on, and what is considered as evidence (and evidence of what). We suggest that a projected threatening future image of China explains how current actions of Chinese actors are interpreted and that this interpretation in turn reinforces the projected future image in a circular logic, with clear policy implications. The associated assumptions, conflations, evaluation, and beliefs regarding ability and agency bundle together many different concerns that analytically should be kept separate. This leads to difficulties in discerning between diverse kinds of risks and threats on different timescales, with policymakers often opting for playing safe.
Introduction
Inspired by the idea that asymmetric interdependencies might be “weaponised” for political ends, the concepts of economic statecraft and geoeconomics have become something of a theme of the time, although the concepts themselves had been around already for decades. The very same globalisation of supply chains that was once supported and championed by a number of neoliberal-inspired governments is now seen as a source of insecurity: not just economic insecurity but potentially a broader national security threat too. Of course, it has long been acknowledged that elongated and complex supply chains might easily be disrupted by a range of factors; sudden shifts in supply and demand, strikes and political instability, corruption, terrorism, and piracy all can (and indeed all have) disrupted production and consumption in various sectors over the years. Even the accidental blocking of the Suez Canal in March 2021 had a significant (albeit fairly transient in the long run) impact on supplies of a whole range of commodities to Europe. Moreover, first the pandemic and then the war in Ukraine have highlighted how quickly previously stable and relatively predictable economic relationships can become unstable and unpredictable.
The geoeconomics discourse goes beyond these concerns in four main ways. First, is the understanding that states may actively develop strategies to create dependencies that they can then use in the future for political advantage. It is not about accidents or unforeseen rapid transformations, or rogue non-state actors. It is about concerted and deliberate state action and intent. Second, in addition to the focus on weaponisable trade relations, there is also a specific concern that state-sponsored or -supported investment activities can result in ownership and control of key (also weaponisable) assets, sectors, and technologies.
Third, while the debate is framed in more general terms, it is really about China. To be sure, the strategic objectives and actions of the USA have been a constant in the study of economic statecraft since its inception. More recently, there has also been research on the economic statecraft of other states. Even so, the main driver of this new (or renewed) interest in geoeconomics is assumed Chinese strategic intentions. Indeed, much of the recent work on the economic statecraft of states other than China is explained by their need to respond to China’s perceived geoeconomic influence. So even when China is not front and centre as the primary research focus, it is often in the background.
Fourth, while a Sino-centric focus has been evident for several years, the geographic scope of attention has shifted. There have been studies of (potential) Chinese economic statecraft in Africa, Latin America, China’s regional “backyards,” and other developing areas pretty much ever since Chinese money started to flow to these areas in significant amounts. This interest remains today. But crucially, it has been joined—and in some cases overtaken—by concern with the geostrategic consequences of Chinese economic statecraft in the developed West. This is no longer a case of worrying about what China might do to “others” (and the indirect consequences of such action), but instead a very live political debate about what China might directly do to “us.”
This article was originally published in The Chinese Journal of International Politics and is republished under the Creative Commons CC BY License. The original article is available at: https://doi.org/10.1093/cjip/poaf003.
