For the most part, Europe's response to the rise of China has been low-key, fragmented and incoherent. This is because the European Union lacks the power and authority to act as an overarching center in Europe's relations with nations such as China. As a result, Europe generally speaks with a weak voice and more often than not with many voices. The European Union is not a unitary state with the capacity to think and act either strategically or coherently, but an amalgam and representative of different interests. Europe's economic relationship with China has grown enormously over the last decade, with a massive increase in imports of cheap Chinese manufactured goods and a very large rise in European exports to China, mainly of relatively high-tech captial goods, especially from Germany. This has resulted in a growing European trade deficit with China as well as a lack of jobs in those industries that compete directly with Chinese imports. Until recently this has aroused very little political debate, certainly nothing like that in the United States.

For the most part, Europe's response to the rise of China has been low-key, fragmented and incoherent. This is because the European Union lacks the power and authority to act as an overarching center in Europe's relations with nations such as China. As a result, Europe generally speaks with a weak voice and more often than not with many voices. The European Union is not a unitary state with the capacity to think and act either strategically or coherently, but an amalgam and representative of different interests. Europe's economic relationship with China has grown enormously over the last decade, with a massive increase in imports of cheap Chinese manufactured goods and a very large rise in European exports to China, mainly of relatively high-tech captial goods, especially from Germany. This has resulted in a growing European trade deficit with China as well as a lack of jobs in those industries that compete directly with Chinese imports. Until recently this has aroused very little political debate, certainly nothing like that in the United States.