How is Europe responding to the eight pillars of the Chinese plan?

A few weeks after the summit between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping, the European Union appears more marginalised than ever. The United States is controlling exports of advanced microchips and imposing tariffs. China dominates critical materials by locking down the upstream sections of value chains.

In this standoff of mutual coercion, two scenarios are emerging: a trade war (in which the EU would be a collateral victim) or a bilateral compromise that would marginalise the EU. Surprised by these developments, Europe initially adopted a strategy of risk mitigation. With Washington, the Turnberry Agreement, recently approved by the Council and the European Parliament, came at the cost of humiliating alignment. With Beijing, uncertainty remains.

On the one hand, some are proposing the use of tariffs, at the risk of triggering an open trade war. On the other, Spain and certain German stakeholders are still proposing measures to regulate investment, at the risk of perpetuating a status quo in which European industry is eroding day by day.

It is against this complex geopolitical backdrop that China’s 15th Five-Year Plan (2026–2030) was adopted in March 2026. This plan makes disruptive technological innovation an absolute priority in order to address the country’s internal structural crises (economic slowdown, an ageing population, and provincial debt). This article argues that China’s 15th Five- Year Plan does not represent a break with the past, but rather confirms and accelerates the long-term industrial strategy initiated in 2015 with the ‘Made in China 2025’ plan.

Conceived as a direct extension of the successes of the 14th Five-Year Plan, it takes this logic even further: having caught up with the world’s most advanced technological standards, Beijing is now focused on securing vertical control of its value chains through eight strategic pillars. This trajectory nevertheless entails structural economic vulnerabilities which Chinese diplomacy is attempting to mask behind a double discourse of interdependence with Europe. Faced with this economic fortress under construction, the article analyses the risk of asymmetry confronting a European Union that is now well aware of the danger.

Finally, after reviewing the European responses already in place, it highlights the remaining gaps, particularly in non-trade measures, to encourage a unified European response across all these areas.