European security policy and China

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So Macron made some waves with his remarks that the anglophone internet doesn't seem to like.

 

I return to a long-held opinion that security policy (and thus as a part of it, alliances) is supposed to serve the own nation first and foremost.

Americans may have become emotionally invested in Taiwan, Europeans not so much. Americans may feel an irrational desire to ward off a challenge to thier gret power greatness by China, Europeans not so much.

The possibility of a PRC-ROC war concerns Europeans' interests mostly in two ways;

1. a disruption of globalised supply chains to the point that European countries could lose a quarter of a year's GDP in output if the war and subsequent drastic sanctions last for several years
2. a violation of the principle that wars of aggression are out
   

You may have noted that the second was already committed by Russia in 2014, the U.S. & UK in 2003 and many NATO countries in 1999. In fact, Israel and the U.S. do it habitually and casually. So we cannot claim that the 2nd bullet point is an extremely big deal to Europe with honesty and without hypocrisy.

We should also note that both points are already met if the conflict turns hot, regardless of who starts it and who 'wins' it. The European interest is thus to avoid such a conflict, not to "win" it. 

Here's what I think European countries should have as a publicly stated policy in case of PRC attack on any East Asian or Southeast Asian country (including a mere naval blockade):

• total trade & travel embargo against PRC (save for medical goods & food)
  
• enable global maritime blockade against PRC
• sell military goods to U.S. with permission to deliver those to Taiwan
• support suspension of PRC in UN

We could even cast this into a law to diminish doubts about this policy.

The counter-trade measures would badly hurt Europe itself, and I added this to the list because I place a much greater emphasis on abolishing wars of aggression than the average European does. At least half of us Europeans are fine with the casual and habitual aggressions by the U.S. and Israel, and the somewhat less often aggressions by Turkey, France and the UK.

In the end, to deter China with military might is too expensive if done the ordinary way. To drastically reduce trade with China in peacetime doesn't fit with the GATT/WTO framework (to let the PRC into the WTO was a colossal mistake) and would have huge economic costs even without a war.

• We should reduce trade dependency on BOTH Chinas in select critical areas. This is AFAIK possible within WTO using the national security argument.
• We should evaluate whether and how to supply ROC/Taiwan with what it needs to deter Chinese invasion (I don't think a blockade attempt could be deterred by them on thier own.)*
  

 

The most stupid thing to do would be to go all-in on an adversarial stance against China, conduct an air/sea arms race and still play mere auxiliary forces to DoD plans without reducing critical economic dependencies on both Chinas. Americans and anglophone internet appear to want Europeans to do almost exactly that, though. We need some prominent voices to stem that tide. 

 

related:

/2017/02/a-security-treaty-for-east-asia-north.html

2017/07/just-reminder-about-north-atlantic.html

/2018/11/natos-boundaries.html

S O

defence_and_freedom@gmx.de

 

*: I think of anti-air, anti-tank and coastal anti-ship weapons, their munitions and the associated targeting and communictions equipment. Artillery and counter-artillery as well as their supplies and peripherals might also make much sense. But first ROC/Taiwan needs to signal that it's serious about being able to fight off an invasion, and this very old blog text on that issue still largely holds true.

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