National Perspectives on Europe’s de-risking from China

Edited by: Patrik Andersson, Frida Lindberg

Peer reviewed by: Bernhard Bartsch, Una Aleksandra Bērziņa-Čerenkova, Andreea Brinza, Lucas Erlbacher, Miguel Otero-Iglesias, John Seaman, Plamen Tonchev and Mariana Trifonova

The “de-risking” of relations with China has become an organizing principle for the European Union (EU) since it was first put forward by President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen in March 2023. This report of the European Think-tank Network on China (ETNC) analyses how 21 EU member states and the United Kingdom view de-risking from a national context. Each chapter is written by China experts who broadly set out to address the same set of questions with respect to their own country:

• What is the country’s standpoint on the EU’s approach to de-risking? 
• Which China-related risks is that country most concerned about? 
• Was the country’s standpoint on de-risking resulted in any concrete measures? 
• How does that standpoint affect the country’s views on or approach to China? 

You can download the full report as a PDF here: 

MERICS experts contributed the following chapters to this year's edition. Click to read them online:

• EU: Chinese undertones in a broader quest for economic security, by François Chimits
• Germany: Assessing the risks of de-risking, by Bernhard Bartsch and Claudia Wessling

• Ireland: Searching for autonomy amid US-China rivalry, by Alexander Davey