When people draw parallels between today’s Europe and 19th-century Qing China, it sounds dramatic. It shouldn’t. The comparison is uncomfortably close, and the more you study the history, the more you see the same strategic pattern unfolding in slow motion.
In the early 1800s, the Qing empire genuinely believed it was still the centre of global civilisation. It had culture, wealth, population scale and a huge domestic market. What it didn’t have was control over the defining technologies of the age — steam power, modern artillery, industrial-scale manufacturing and long-range logistics. The result was inevitable: the Opium Wars, the unequal treaties, the forced opening of markets and the progressive dismantling of sovereignty. Not because China lacked pride or intellect — but because it lacked the capability to resist powers that had modernised faster.
Europe today is drifting into the same strategic blind spot.
The post-war bargain that once protected Europe no longer holds
After 1945, Europe made a deliberate choice. It outsourced hard security to the United States. In return, Europe was allowed to rebuild, integrate, expand its welfare systems and enjoy an unprecedented rise in living standards.
America, in turn, gained two enormous advantages: global military leadership, and the uncontested role of issuer of the world’s reserve currency. It was a mutually reinforcing deal. Europe got peace and protection; America got dominance and dollar hegemony.
For decades, this worked. US presidents — Republican and Democrat — accepted the burden of leadership. The relationship was political and strategic, not transactional. Europe was a partner, not a client.
Then the world changed.
Trump marks a break not because he “hates Europe”, but because he approaches geopolitics the way a CEO approaches a negotiation. He sees Europe not as a shared project but as a dependent customer with no leverage. A customer who has under-invested in its own defences for 30 years and now complains when the supplier raises the price. From his perspective, why wouldn’t America monetise its overwhelming power? Why wouldn’t it demand better terms, concessions or alignment? This is not “anti-European”. It’s simply commercial logic applied to global security.
Meanwhile, our rivals don’t play by Europe’s rules — and never have
Europe sees the world through a moral and economic lens. Russia and China see it through a civilisational and strategic one.
Russia is relatively poor, yet it is willing to absorb economic damage, reputational loss and battlefield casualties on a scale no European government could survive. Its national strategy is not built on GDP per capita. It is built on identity, territory and perceived historical destiny.
China is now a world power by any metric — economic, military, technological, industrial. And China’s leadership has been explicit: consumer prosperity is a tool, not the goal. The goal is national rejuvenation, world-leading technological capability and the strategic freedom to reshape global norms. If that requires short-term economic pain, China will take it.
Both countries prioritise power over comfort. Europe prioritises comfort over capability. That is the structural asymmetry that puts Europe in genuine long-term danger.
Europe now lacks the tools to shape events — and everyone knows it
Europe cannot sustain a high-intensity conflict without American support. It cannot defend its airspace without US satellites. It cannot project force without US logistics. It cannot match Chinese scale in microchips, batteries, AI, rare-earths or supply-chain integration.
And when you do not control the critical technologies of your era, you do not control your fate.
The emerging “peace plan” for Ukraine illustrates this all too clearly. A deal initially shaped by American and Russian actors, presented almost as a fait accompli, with Europe expected to nod along. Not because Europe lacks moral authority. But because it lacks leverage.
This is the European version of an unequal treaty: you attend the meeting, but you don’t get to set the terms.
It’s not that Europe thinks the US is wrong — it’s that Europe can’t do anything else
Here’s the truth most European leaders won’t say publicly: Europe is now dependent on the continued goodwill of the United States to contain the ambitions of Russia and China.
We can say “America is exploiting us.”
We can say “Russia’s imperialism is unacceptable.”
We can say “China’s ambitions worry us.”
All of that may be true.
But truth doesn’t equal power.
Right now Europe cannot stop Russia.
It cannot deter China.
And it cannot survive without the United States acting as both shield and supplier.
That puts Europe in the most vulnerable position a civilisation can be in: we don’t want to be dominated by America, Russia or China — but we lack the strength to avoid being dominated by one of them.
If Europe fails to rearm, reindustrialise and rebuild technological sovereignty, then the question becomes brutally simple: who do we want to be dependent on? A transactional America that sees leverage everywhere? A resurgent China that sees the future as a contest of systems? Or a fractured European Union struggling to protect its own periphery?
None of these outcomes reflect what Europe prefers. But outcomes don’t follow preferences — they follow capability.
And yet, Europe still has the tools to avoid this fate — for now
Europe is not Qing China in one crucial sense: we still invent much of the world’s cutting-edge technology. Our universities, scientists, engineers and researchers are outstanding. Our societies are stable. Our capital markets are deep. Our talent base is enormous.
But inventions don’t matter if you don’t scale them. Scientific breakthroughs don’t matter if you sell them. Values don’t matter if you can’t defend them.
The window for Europe to avoid a century of strategic irrelevance is open. But it is not wide, and it is not permanent.
We need to end the illusion that comfort is a strategy. We need to rebuild capability, not just compassion. And we need leaders willing to tell voters that decline is not a law of nature — it is a political choice.
Europe can continue drifting into an age of “unequal treaties”, or it can re-enter history as a serious power.
But the world won’t wait for us to decide.
Note: This is my extended rewrite and analysis of William Hague’s article “Europe risks going the way of imperial China,” originally published in The Times.
Let us know what you think ….