中文
By Andrew Korybko
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell shared some insights into the bloc's role in the global systemic transition to multi-polarity during an EU ambassadors' conference on October 10. He observed that "our prosperity was based on China and Russia – [Russian] energy and [Chinese] market" and that "we delegated our security to the United States." These are all factual observations, but he has everything backwards since he regards those relationships as strategic vulnerabilities rather than strategic assets.
The complex interdependence that the EU has entered into with respect to China, Russia, and the U.S. on markets, energy, and security have correspondingly bolstered its strategic autonomy in the systemic transition by enhancing its balancing capabilities. The bloc could multi-align between those three major countries in order to maximize its interests in each related sphere. Its proper prosperity was based on these same relations that Borrell wrongly concludes weren't to its benefit after all.
Reliable energy imports from Russia fueled the EU's industrial production, while easy access to the Chinese market enabled its small- and medium-sized businesses to rise in parallel with larger powerhouses. By outsourcing security to the U.S., the EU could invest more in social support systems for its citizens, as well as helping those millions of refugees that flooded into the bloc during the 2015 crisis, not to mention the larger number of Ukrainians that recently followed them.
Instead of remaining in the center of the systemic transition by retaining its strategic importance with each of those three major countries through its prior complex interdependent relations with them, Borrell seeks to "decouple" the bloc from all three. He's already done so with respect to Russia by capitulating to the U.S.'s sanctions demands, but this was done at the expense of its energy security, which is worsening the EU's socio-economic situation with unpredictable political consequences.
Regarding China, reports have swirled over the past month that the U.S. is plotting to promulgate Russia-like sanctions against China. Under such a scenario, the U.S. would coerce the EU into capitulating to this pressure as it has recently succeeded in doing with respect to the anti-Russian sanctions, thus tricking it into counter-productively harming its own interests.
To explain, the EU's economic autonomy in the systemic transition via prior reliable energy imports from Russia and continued access to the Chinese market enabled it to exercise a semblance of strategic autonomy vis-a-vis the U.S., though this was sacrificed for ideological and political reasons. The U.S. manipulated the Europeans' commitment to their subjectively defined "values" to convince their decision makers into inflicting massive damage to their economies through the sanctions.
The booth of Miji from Germany at the Consumer Goods exhibition area during the 3rd China International Import Expo in Shanghai, East China, November 6, 2020. [Photo/Xinhua]
It therefore follows that there's a credible chance that these same easily manipulated decisionmakers might do something similar in the scenario of the U.S. pressuring them to promulgate Russia-like sanctions against China, which would deal a deathblow to their economy. That's the point though since the U.S. has waged a hybrid war against the EU through these interconnected ideological-political means to remove its top economic competitor in the West.
The euro's exchange rate has plunged compared to the dollar to reach parity with it for the first time in two decades. There are economic-financial pros and cons to this newfound relationship between their currencies, but it's a direct consequence of the artificially manufactured circumstances instigated by the U.S.'s manipulation of EU decisionmakers after getting them to harm their economies through their compliance with anti-Russian sanctions.
Additionally, Borrell's proposal to achieve military autonomy via the U.S. would be very expensive and coming at the expense of the bloc's prior commitment to social support systems, as well as being an unrealistic approach. There's no way the U.S. could ever allow the EU to fulfill that goal out of fear that this declining unipolar hegemon might lose control of the bloc. At most, the U.S.'s military-industrial complex will seek to profit from this proposal while its intelligence services manage its trajectory.
In practice, this could take the form of the U.S.'s"Leading from behind"—an infamous concept previously employed during NATO's war on Libya in 2011 —to have the EU "lead from the front" in "containing" Russia. That could free up American military resources for redeployment to the Asia-Pacific in order to act more aggressively to "contain" China. Meanwhile, the bloc's economic-financial crisis would be exacerbated through its "decoupling" from Russian energy and perhaps also Chinese markets.
Accordingly, Borrell has gotten everything backwards about China, Russia, and the U.S. Instead of counter-productively "decoupling" the bloc from its complex interdependence on the first's markets and the second's energy, he should support these relations in order to boost Brussels' economic autonomy and thus its strategic autonomy in the systemic transition. As for the U.S., it's unrealistic to anticipate a security "decoupling," which would be a financially wasteful facade.
The EU has already gone too far with respect to "decoupling" from Russian energy, but it can still retain its market access with China so long as it refuses to comply with any potentially forthcoming U.S. demands to promulgate Russia-like sanctions against China. That mutually beneficial relationship of complex interdependence must be preserved; otherwise there won't be any hope of the EU ever restoring its prior economic autonomy with a view toward salvaging some of its strategic autonomy.
Andrew Korybko is a Moscow-based American political analyst.
