Why is China considered as an enemy of Europe ?

r/

There are dozens of un-democratic developing country in the world, but why China is one of them to be considered as Europe’s enemy ?

Comments

  1. Egzo18 Avatar

    Its a dictatorship, superpower, has concentration camps for its own citizens, I don’t wanna think what is it going to do to its enemies.

  2. Sadlave89 Avatar

    Why not? They supply components to ruzzia, ruzzia it using in the war agains Ukraine. They want to connect Taiwan… you need more?

  3. Aufklarung_Lee Avatar

    Not enemy, rival. Big difference between the two. Russia is an enemy.

    It is considered a rival due to system differences combined with sufficient economic, political and military power to not simply be ignored like for instance Eritrea.

    Given the actions by a USA, actively trying to kill a century old alliance system, relations and view of China might change to the positive especially if the EU and China start cooperating more and sign some mutually beneficial treaties.

  4. CLKguy1991 Avatar

    China is not an enemy, but is not a friend either. China is one of the “world domination end game” players, together with US (and the wannabes Russia). So we naturally have to be suspicious of their doings in our countries.

    But today, honestly, I need to acknowledge that China hasn’t done anything overtly bad to us so far, but nothing overtly good either.

    US has done a lot of good, but recent events leave a bitter taste. Historically, we shouldn’t forget their positive contributions in the two world wars, cold war and so on.

  5. dronten_bertil Avatar

    They support Russia in their war, they spy, steal IP, conduct hybrid warfare operations, use their influence to pressure European countries to limit freedom of speech (with regard to China and their affairs), they’ve jailed European citizens of Chinese descent on no grounds other than being critical to the communist regime, to mention a few.

  6. saltyholty Avatar

    They are emerging as a potential world power, and not just a regional power.

    1. The US doesn’t want it to do that regardless
    2. People with certain ideological commitments don’t want it to do that regardless
    3. People without ideological commitments need to wait and see what kind of world power it is going to be

    That covers most of it.

  7. Roquet_ Avatar

    China is growing economically at an astounding rate due to things like no consideration of human rights. They completely trump us at AI, electric vehicles and other stuff, if they’re not stopped all our industries will die from their efforts.

  8. kaisadilla_ Avatar

    China is not considered an enemy. There’s some points of friction between us, notably their ambitions on Taiwan and the inhumane way they deal with Uyghurs, but neither of us threatens to attack the other.

  9. Brido-20 Avatar

    Because unlike other large developing.countries they’re not content with the place assigned them in the European/North American/white people-decided global status order and have the means to do something about it.

    All the froth about dictatorships, democracy, human rights, etc. is just a smokescreen for plain old fear that we’ll stop being in charge one day. I think we realise deep down how much more that contributes to our collective wealth than superior producitivty.

  10. ItsACaragor Avatar

    First China is not an enemy, it is an adversary or a rival. Enemy would imply that we are actively at war with them, but we are not at war with China and we do trade with them.

    And then while we do care about their human rights records it’s not the main reason China is seen with suspicion, them bankrolling Russia in Ukraine is a much bigger factor on our unwillingness to consider them as a friendly actor.

    Russia would have never been able to hold this long without China and North Korea (a state which is essentially entirely dependent on China) sending arms, money and manpower to russian agressor.

  11. Faceless_Deviant Avatar

    Not viewed as an enemy. It is viewed as a strong nation that is behaving aggresively and threateningly..

  12. r0w33 Avatar

    As others have said, not yet an enemy. But they are an expansionary dictatorship that demonstrates a total disregard for human rights. This is not compatible with democracy and European values. If nothing changes then sooner or later they will be an enemy.

  13. Moist-Imagination627 Avatar

    Because America has decided for us that they are our enemy, since they’re the biggest threat to the American Hegemony right now. And since America is the de facto leader of our Western/Atlantic Alliance, we are bound to follow whatever the leader says.

    Although that is certainly starting to change, Trump’s tariffs have ironically pushed us more towards China’s corner now than anything. China has also not done any serious harm towards Europe/Europeans as a whole, and they seem more (outwardly) keen on working with us rather than subjugating us.

    But we do also have to note that they are 100% self-interested and have no cultural ties/bonds with us, unlike the USA (or so we thought before 2025), and if given the opportunity they will probably burn us for their own gain if we get too close to them. And they do also actively help Russia (our biggest regional enemy) in their war against Ukraine, which is against our security interests. So we still have to be 100% weary when dealing with them.

    Lastly, from what I heard from my PRC friend from university, there is an underlying sentiment of resentment against Europe because of what we did to them during the Century of Humiliation (which is justified imho – our colonial ancestors really fucked them hard back then). According to him, that sentiment is apparently one of the biggest driving forces behind Modern China’s current drive to become a world power. Although Europe and China have now politically moved past that stage of history, we still need to be aware about the possible historical vengefulness they may have against us as well.

    TL;DR: They’re not our outright enemy, but they’re not our ally either. And they likely won’t be our ally so we have to remain careful when dealing with them. Especially since they’re also allied with our outright enemy (Russia).

  14. Top_Pear128 Avatar

    Because it isn’t a democracy and has expansionist ideas in Taiwan, also they’re trying to get much greater influence in some African countries to get natural resources that we also need

  15. leobutters Avatar

    Because the US considers it a rival, and EU is just an extended arm of the US in their fight for global dominance as a superpower 💁‍♂️

  16. DirectDemocracy84 Avatar

    China has always been considered on the same level as United States. But with worse marketing.

    If you look at Sweden 50 years ago China was actually the dominant influence. There were whisperings back then about the western winds blowing from the US and their influence growing.

  17. No_Individual_6528 Avatar

    Because they keep pestering us with their moral bullshit whenever someone says something about their dictatorship.

  18. pokemurrs Avatar

    I don’t think they’re enemies, but their ideology is wholly incompatible with supposed “Western” values. China is a purely authoritarian regime with very little concern for progressive values or human rights.