Europe sees China as a rival.

China sees Europe as a has-been

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A continued surge in Chinese exports could push Europe toward tougher, possibly aggressive, countermeasures.

(AFP)

European leaders reserve some of their fiercest criticism for themselves.

They are admirably blunt in diagnosing their political and economic problems, if sadly not as adept at fixing them. Yet if they are feeling especially masochistic, they should consider travelling to China. There they will find much of their own self-criticism broadcast back to them—but amplified and in even harsher tones.

Europeans endlessly debate how to avoid becoming trapped between America and China. For many in China that seems needless, because they already view Europe as an American pawn. “Europe is incapable of truly breaking free from America to become independent,” opined a scholar from Fudan University in a recent article. Europeans obsess over their competitiveness. In China many see that as laughable. “Europe simply lacks the strength to meet the challenges” in many technological domains, declared the Economic Daily, a Chinese newspaper. As for challenges to European unity, Eurocrats love to navel-gaze. In China critics go a step farther. “Whether the European Union can even survive until 2035 is a question,” Zhang Weiwei, a nationalist academic, said on television in September.

‘And these are just the public comments. In private, as Chaguan recently heard from a range of Chinese scholars, the opinions are often more scathing. Europe is a bit like an ageing concubine who cannot accept that she has been ditched by her American emperor, says one consultant. “Europe hates innovation,” says another. This disdain can sometimes seep into official affairs. A European business representative reports that on a recent visit to the Chinese foreign ministry he was greeted with a wolf-warrior-like berating—mainly, he surmised, for the sport of it.