The EU's Kaja Kallas said a lot of nonsense about China.
In short, the translation is:
“We failed, but China is the problem.”
The EU subsidizes its own industries.
The U.S. subsidizes its own industries.
Europe protected agriculture, aviation, energy, cars, and strategic sectors for decades.
But when China builds the factories, supply chains, ports, grids, rare earth processing, batteries, EVs, and industrial capacity Europe allowed to decay, suddenly it becomes “distortion.”
Brilliant.
When the West was winning, it was called competitiveness.
When China wins, it becomes “dependency.”
When Europe enjoyed cheap Chinese goods, it was globalization.
When Europe can no longer compete, it becomes a “strategic risk.”
Now they want to “de-risk” from China, but they are terrified of the cost, because deep down they know the truth:
China did not steal Europe’s industrial base.
Europe outsourced it, financialized itself, regulated itself into decay, and then woke up shocked that factories still matter.
As for China-Russia military cooperation: China and Russia have their own normal military relationship. Europe does not get to turn every Chinese-Russian interaction into a Ukraine sermon while NATO expands, arms, trains, sanctions, and lectures the whole planet.
A geopolitically exhausted Europe should spend less time blaming China and more time asking why it gave up everything China still knows how to build.