Kaja Kallas, the European Union’s top diplomat, recently said that ending the continent’s dependence on China was like trying to cure a disease. “Chemotherapy” may be required, she said, and it will likely be painful.
The comments were an example of the tone Europe is increasingly taking toward China, the 27-nation European Union’s second-largest goods trading partner after the United States.
As Beijing pursues more aggressive trade policies and imports from China to Europe soar, European leaders and companies are worried about their dependence on Chinese products – and discussing how to pull back. As China becomes increasingly dominant in manufacturing, Europe sees an existential threat to its own industries.
“The tone is basically panic,” said Jeromin Zettelmeyer, director of Bruegel, an economic think tank in Brussels. “There is a sense of impending industrial collapse, of imminent danger.”
The concerns in Brussels are being met with hostility in Beijing, where officials warn that China will push back on any protective measures. The sparring is likely to get even more intense in the coming weeks.
World leaders will discuss global economic imbalances at a Group of Seven meeting in Evian, France, next month. China is expected to be on the agenda at a meeting of the European Union’s 27 leaders shortly afterwards.
The European Union’s executive branch is expected to hold an early debate on policy toward China on Friday that could help set the tone for upcoming discussions.
European officials still express hope that they might be able to work with China to address trade imbalances that have become more pronounced as Beijing has boosted its exports to boost economic growth. But they are also considering stronger trade and industrial measures to curb China’s growing dominance in sensitive areas.
Cutting back on China could prove extremely difficult for Europe. Politicians and businesses fear retaliation, and consumers are addicted to what China is selling. Europeans continue to buy cheaper Chinese goods, particularly electric vehicles, which the European Union has already tried unsuccessfully to prevent from flooding their market.
“We’re not doing well,” Rebecca Arcesati said. who works in Brussels for the Mercator Institute for China Studies, a think tank. She pointed out that European leaders have to contend with voters and more short-term political considerations – and that makes it difficult to counter the influx from China, especially if Beijing retaliates.
“Our systems are not designed for such a challenge,” Ms. Arcesati said.
China has government subsidies and programs that have strengthened the position of the country’s factories and companies. The government in Beijing has relied on the industry after a housing crisis left policymakers needing another growth engine. And as American tariffs made exporting to the United States more difficult for Chinese producers, these factories increased their exports to markets like Europe.
In the first quarter of this year, imports from China to Europe rose sharply. An analysis of 2026 customs data by the online newsletter Soapbox and the Mercator Institute for China Studies found that China’s trade imbalance with the European Union reached record levels earlier this year due to the flood of electric vehicles.
The jump came as Chinese automakers faced falling domestic demand and pushed into Europe. At the same time, European consumers turned to greener alternatives as war in the Middle East drove up fuel prices.
This followed a trade deficit in goods of about $418 billion in 2025, based on EU figures.
The merger threatens European manufacturers and their employees, particularly in countries like Germany, which has traditionally been a large automobile and chemicals producer and is now struggling to compete.
As concerns mount, Europe is turning to tougher rhetoric and bolder ideas.
Emmanuel Macron, the French president and long-time China critic, has called on the European Union to create measures to protect strategic industries similar to those that the United States has and uses.
Pedro Sánchez, Spain’s prime minister, often seen as one of the more pro-Beijing leaders in Europe, said during a recent trip to Beijing that the continent needs China to open up “so that Europe doesn’t have to close itself off.”
Spain, along with France, Italy, Lithuania and the Netherlands, recently prepared a paper calling on the European Union to respond forcefully, including with new trade instruments. While the paper did not mention China by name, it criticized trading partners with “systemic and structural industrial overcapacity.”
Brad Setser, an economist at the Council on Foreign Relations, a think tank, said many European leaders needed to tread carefully with China for fear of retaliation. But, he added, fears of production losses could outweigh that, even in countries like Germany.
Europe is already taking some steps to protect itself, including with the European Union’s proposed Industrial Accelerator Act, a far-reaching policy to rebuild the bloc’s manufacturing base. The draft plan would effectively prevent Chinese companies from benefiting from some key subsidies that would particularly benefit electric vehicles manufactured in Europe.
The policy was met with outrage from Beijing, which denounced the plan as protectionist and warned of retaliation.
But China’s increasingly aggressive stance on trade has contributed to the backlash intensifying in Europe.
Last year, China twice banned exports of rare earth minerals and magnets in retaliation for American tariffs. The bans hit Europe, which uses both materials in high-tech and green energy production.
The supply failure made it clear to European companies how dependent they were.
In April, Beijing unveiled rules allowing officials to inspect company records, question employees and even block executives from leaving China if they are determined to help move supply chains out of the country.
According to a recent assessment by the European Chamber of Commerce in China, this move “could now cause unprecedented damage to the European economy.”
China’s resistance is partly because Beijing senses a less unified front against its trade policies as Washington and Brussels bicker, said Noah Barkin, an expert on Europe-China relations at Rhodium Group, a research firm.
Beijing’s “message to Europe is: ‘Your ‘best friend forever’ is gone and even the Americans are looking to us for stability, so don’t test us,” Mr Barkin said.