> On the economic front, China’s new economic strategy — a combination of shutting out European products, sending out a massive wave of subsidized exports, and putting export controls on rare earths — threatens to forcibly deindustrialize Europe
This is definitely a problem. China wants to freely operate in foreign markets, but wants to also lock others out of their own market, or control their companies to a level where they can perform intellectual property theft, or commit straight up asymmetrical warfare (like cyberattacks). But competitiveness with China requires more than fixing those problems - it also requires plain old effort - and the culture of work and social safety nets in Europe (the pension problem mentioned in the article) are difficult to fix.
Finally, I wonder who Europe can partner with now - not China, and obviously not America. Does that leave India as the only alternative? Because it doesn’t appear to me that European leaders or its citizens are very friendly towards them either. Maybe Southeast Asia or South America could also be partners. But the geopolitical strategy of Europe seems non existent. The American dependency has been destroyed but what fills that empty space?
India is not going to partner militarily with anyone, European or not, for the exact reason that Europe now find itself in.
> The American dependency has been destroyed but what fills that empty space?
This is honestly a bit crazy right? You can depend on yourselves? I can't believe I need to tell Europe that they should look into the meaning of swaraj.
> India is not going to partner militarily with anyone, European or not...
India will partner with those nations that align with reducing India's biggest security threat - a two-front war against Pakistan and China.
This is why India has been building close defense and economic ties with Greece [0] and Cyprus [1], because it allows India to put pressure on Turkiye which has increasingly armed Pakistan and now-ambivalent Bangladesh. It also gives India two additional vetoes in the European Council on top of the French and Italian vetoes due to economic and MIC ties. It's also why Israel is also building close defense ties with Greece+Cyprus [2][3] as well.
And this is why the EU is becoming increasingly dysfunctional - individual nations like the US, China, Russia, the Gulf States, Israel, Turkiye, India, and others are using state-level ties to either steamroll their strategic goals through the EU or block those of their competitors.
What do you mean by alliance? India already has defense agreements with Greece, Cyprus, and France that consist of intel collection, IP transfer (in the case of France), and free naval berthing rights along with dual use ports port development deals in the Mediterranean.
Anything beyond that at this stage would be unnecessarily hemming both India as well as France, Greece, and Cyprus' relationships in their backyard.
The deals with Greece, Cyprus, France (and the United States btw), are for defense cooperation (i.e. training, supplies, war games, etc). Yeah sure. They'll cooperate. An alliance means mutual defense. India is not going to sign a treaty saying they'll come defend you and you'll come to defend it. That's just never happening.
> Because it doesn’t appear to me that European leaders or its citizens are very friendly towards them either
There's a reason the EU is finalizing an FTA with India [0], with the backing of France, Italy, Germany, Denmark, and others. India also has a multiple veto in the EU now thanks to France, Greece [1], and Cyprus [2]. India is also heavily investing in France's MIC leading to Safran [3], Thales [4], and Dassault [5] transferring IP to Indian SoEs and setting up shop in India.
But this inevitably gives India an indirect veto position like China and the US, because of India's hard anti-Turkiye stance aligns with Greece and Cyprus' national security needs (ambivalent/indifferent about Russia but antagonistic to Turkiye) and subsidizes a large portion of France's industrial base. Essentially, it allows India to use pressure on Greece and Cyprus to influence the EU the same way China uses pressure on Spain and Hungary to influence the EU, and the US uses the CEE and Ireland.
I’m not an expert on India-Europe relations, but online I’ve seen a lot of hateful talk towards them from content creators and politicians. I don’t know if that is a misrepresentation but I’ve got the sense that there is hostility. Some of this is cultural animosity but I think it’s also economic - like around having to compete on labor costs. Is it really viable for European politicians to partner with India in that environment? And will India go for it or will they distrust Europe? I think the same question could be asked for Southeast Asian countries too but they’re smaller and maybe are less of a focus in geopolitics.
> I’ve seen a lot of hateful talk towards them from content creators and politicians. I don’t know if that is a misrepresentation but I’ve got the sense that there is hostility...
> Is it really viable for European politicians to partner with India in that environment? And will India go for it or will they distrust Europe?
It doesn't matter.
The decisions that matter to India can be forced through the European Council, and even in those countries with nativist sentiments like Croatia [0], Greece, Cyprus and Italy [1], India increasingly uses it's monetary power to extract the deals it wants - especially because China has decided to increasingly consolidate it's investments in Hungary and Spain instead and OBOR funding in much of Europe has been scaled down [2][3] so the only large economy left that can help.
On top of that, European countries like France are using India as a backdoor for continuing business operations on dual use technology like Safran-UAC's SJ-100 commercial jet project [4].
Essentially, those politically unpopular decisions that require public consent go through the European Council, and everything else is done via business and state-level engagements.
It's the same model China used in the late 2000s and early 2010s when it was at the stage that India is at today.
> I think the same question could be asked for Southeast Asian countries too but they’re smaller and maybe are less of a focus in geopolitics
ASEAN nations like Vietnam already have FTAs with the EU [5] and are conducting influence ops within Europe with impunity [6]
This is why I made an earlier comparison to the EU with the Qing and Mughal Empires - both federal empires collapsed because individual European states made deals with those empires subnational units, which undermined both empires.
This is definitely a problem. China wants to freely operate in foreign markets, but wants to also lock others out of their own market, or control their companies to a level where they can perform intellectual property theft, or commit straight up asymmetrical warfare (like cyberattacks). But competitiveness with China requires more than fixing those problems - it also requires plain old effort - and the culture of work and social safety nets in Europe (the pension problem mentioned in the article) are difficult to fix.
Finally, I wonder who Europe can partner with now - not China, and obviously not America. Does that leave India as the only alternative? Because it doesn’t appear to me that European leaders or its citizens are very friendly towards them either. Maybe Southeast Asia or South America could also be partners. But the geopolitical strategy of Europe seems non existent. The American dependency has been destroyed but what fills that empty space?