1. What Europeans think about the US-China Cold War
- Author:
- Ivan Krastev and Mark Leonard
- Publication Date:
- 09-2021
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR)
- Abstract:
- A majority of European citizens believe a new cold war with both China and Russia is under way – but they mostly do not think that their own country is involved. Most believe the US is already taking part in these confrontations, and they consider EU institutions as more likely than their own governments to be in a cold war with China and Russia. An optimistic interpretation sees the outsourcing of such great-power competition to Brussels as the arrival of a true EU foreign policy – but a more pessimistic analysis sees a gap emerging between Brussels on the one hand and member state capitals and EU citizens on the other. This difference in views between whether one’s own country is taking part in the brewing conflict, as opposed to whether America and the EU are, suggests there is no European public consensus that the world of tomorrow will be one of growing competition between democracy and authoritarianism. Given this risk, policymakers should find a different, less ideological, framing to generate public support for a strong transatlantic alliance.
- Topic:
- Foreign Policy, Cold War, Authoritarianism, European Union, Democracy, Alliance, and Strategic Competition
- Political Geography:
- China, Europe, and United States of America