An internally split Europe can never fully engage China and Asia

When contemporary Europe engages with the world, it increasingly presents as two distinct Europes operating within the same institutional framework. This duality – a Europe of strategic dependence vs a Europe of normative assertion – creates a contradiction. For partners, particularly in China and across Asia, this is not merely an abstract identity crisis but a practical geopolitical puzzle that complicates engagement and challenges assumptions about Europe’s global role. One Europe, embedded...