Last month, Dubravka Šuica, European Commission Vice-President, encapsulated a key inflection point in the EU’s approach to its own resilience and its choice of partners: “Democracy cannot be taken for granted”. This builds upon a critical announcement in September last year by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen of a ‘Defense of Democracy’ package to root out covert foreign influence, stating, “We will not allow any autocracy's Trojan horses to attack our democracies from within.” EU member states have been contending with the rise of China as a tech power and changing geopolitics viz the US-China competition in their own ways. The Dutch this month joined the US’s move to ban chip exports to China and Germany is reviewing the use of Chinese vendors for its 5G networks. Yet, the EU does not act like a bloc: Its members are not completely aligned on the threats posed by dependence on China. How are different EU states responding to China Tech? What can we expect from the Defense of Democracy package and which sectors are most critical to this effort? Does China need Europe more than Europe needs China for its tech-led growth?
