China won’t like the sound of commissioner hearings. Here’s why.

BRUSSELS — It has gone from bad to worse.

Europe’s view on China has taken a negative turn in the last five years. It’s not just the age-old concerns about human rights or economic imbalance. Beijing’s widened support for Moscow after the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine — allowing the Russian economy to maintain a critical lifeline despite unprecedented Western sanctions — has angered Europe as well.

From Beijing’s perspective, there’s always a strategic value in keeping Europe happy — especially if it drives a wedge between Washington and Brussels. U.S.-China relations, already fraught, are expected to become even more unpredictable if Donald Trump wins the presidential election on Nov. 5.

That ship, however, seems to have sailed. As Ursula von der Leyen prepares to start her second term as president of the European Commission — the EU’s executive body — POLITICO takes a look at how critical her incoming commissioners are on China, according to written statements they’ve submitted to the European Parliament, which will conduct nomination hearings over the next two weeks.

Foreign policy

The EU’s foreign policy chief-designate Kaja Kallas is set to reshape EU-China relations — thanks to Beijing’s increasingly close ties with Moscow.

Kallas, a former Estonian prime minister, has been an advocate for a tougher Western response to Russia, which poses a security threat also to the Baltic countries.

Kallas telegraphed what could be perhaps the most significant shift when she stopped short of repeating in full the EU’s official line on China, calling the country a “partner, economic competitor and systemic rival” all in one. That position, set out in 2019, has long been criticized for being unrealistic, given Beijing’s intense competition with Europe’s biggest security provider, the U.S.

Instead, Kallas focused on the element of rivalry and made no mention of partnership. “I will … spare no effort in defending the EU’s values and protecting the EU’s interest vis-a-vis systemic rivals. My priority in engaging with China will be to safeguard the EU’s geopolitical and economic security,” she wrote MEPs.

China-Russia

Kallas also highlighted Beijing’s growing friendship with Moscow. Chinese President Xi Jinping flew to the Russian city of Kazan last week, celebrating Vladimir Putin’s chairmanship of the anti-West BRICS summit.

“The most pressing challenges here are China’s support for Russia,” Kallas wrote.

She also counted Beijing as one of several “malign” states contributing to hybrid threats against the EU. “Actors such as Russia, Iran, North Korea, and partly China, aim at weaponizing interdependencies and exploiting the openness of our societies against us,” Kallas said.

A more unexpected reference came from Dubravka Šuica, the commissioner-designate for Mediterranean affairs — not a post one normally associates with EU-China clashes.

“Our rivals are making strides in the region. Countries such as China and Russia are imposing their own narratives and promoting their own interests, while the reputation of the EU is under pressure,” Šuica wrote critically.

Climate (un)cooperation

Climate change is one of the few remaining areas where the EU has wanted to engage China.

But as China continues to burn coal and export massively subsidized electric vehicles crucial to the EU’s green transition, this area, too, is under more pressure.

The EU’s incoming climate commissioner, Wopke Hoekstra, called for more robust policies to counter dependency on Beijing in his written answers.

“The Commission has taken important steps to address dependencies on China, but more is needed,” Hoekstra said, highlighting “the need for a sufficient manufacturing base in the EU.”

Electric cars

Hoekstra said the Commission’s proposed tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles will help “ensure a level playing field.”

While his support for tariffs was expected — Dutch officials like to call themselves “forward-leaning” on addressing China’s strategic challenges — the backing of Spain’s commissioner-designate came as a surprise.

Teresa Ribera, who will get the plum job as executive vice president for competition and green/digital transitions, comes from a Spanish government that U-turned on its initial support for von der Leyen’s measures against Chinese electric cars.

Ribera wrote the electric vehicle anti-subsidy investigation “was grounded on solid facts and evidence and was carried out in line with [World Trade Organization] WTO rules.” She added that the Commission “is working to find a negotiated solution” — a key demand for Madrid not to block the Commission’s proposal to impose duties of up to 35.3 percent.

But Ribera also took a veiled swipe at the way Brussels has handled the case. “Looking ahead, we need to conduct a broader strategic discussion about the future of the automotive industry in the EU using all the policy tools in our toolbox in a coherent way.”

Trade imbalance

As China’s economy has stalled, more industrial outputs are turning to Europe, one of the wealthier economies open to Chinese imports thanks to the EU’s distinctly WTO-friendly approach.

Slowly but surely, the EU is having a rethink of its trade policies — which will be heavily impacted if Donald Trump wins the U.S. presidency. Trump is expected to effectively box China out of the U.S. market, likely resulting in even more Chinese exports to the EU.

The designated commissioner for trade and economic security, Maroš Šefčovič, said the EU should focus on sharpening its tools to handle China’s unbalanced trade with the bloc.

Šefčovič stressed the “significant level-playing-field concerns linked to the negative externalities of China’s state-driven economic model and industrial policy, as well as the overcapacities that are distorting global markets and supply chains.”

“Addressing these challenges will require continuous dialogue as well as the strategic use of our updated toolbox of autonomous instruments whenever necessary,” he wrote to MEPs.

Challenging Belt and Road

China shows no sign of slowing down on promoting its Belt and Road Initiative, now in its 10th year. The program — aimed at better interconnecting global markets through ambitious infrastructure projects — is also a tool to expand Beijing’s diplomatic influence and global standing, especially in developing countries.

In 2021, the EU launched the Global Gateway as a counterforce to Belt and Road. So far, however, little has been achieved, and the new commissioner in charge, businessman-turned-politician Jozef Síkela, has vowed to make a change.

“We must demonstrate that Europe’s offer is a better option,” he said. When asked about Belt and Road by MEPs, he said: “Some of the offers come with strings attached and are used to promote rival governance models.”

China’s projects have been marred by allegations of debt-trap diplomacy. A dozen poor countries are facing economic instability and even collapse under the weight of hundreds of billions of dollars in foreign loans, mainly from Beijing, according to media investigations.

There’s also a need for better PR to help the EU challenge the Chinese narrative in places like Africa and Latin America, according to Síkela.

“That calls for a more strategic and focused approach, driven by professional campaigns that reach new audiences through the channels they use, and with a message that matters to them,” Síkela wrote. “None of our competitors proposes an offer that matches ours; we must make sure that the world knows it.”