European foreign ministers attend a meeting in on Dec. 12, 2024. © Reuters
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How lessons from the Ukraine war are influencing the EU’s Indo-Pacific strategy
The Russian invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, brought the European Union and Poland closer to like-minded states in Asia, including Japan. We realized that despite different histories and cultures we share the same values regarding international politics, namely the adherence to the international law-based order established in 1945.
The Ramstein group created to help Ukraine militarily in April 2022 consists of over 50 states. It includes all NATO members, as well as Australia, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea, and some African and Latin American countries.
Over almost three years of the war in Ukraine, a linkage was made between Eastern Europe and East Asia. From a political perspective, a Russian victory would be interpreted as proof that aggression pays and can succeed because the liberal democracies of the world are weak, divided, lack strategic understanding and prefer to concentrate on commerce and profit, rather than sticking to the law-based order that made the world so successful after World War II. As a consequence, the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait may soon face similar pressures. Abandoning Ukraine today will set an ominous precedent for some countries in East Asia.
In the European Union, and in Poland in particular, we realize that in the current situation security is the most important part of state policy. Germany’s Ostpolitik engagement and Wandel durch Handel (Change Through Trade) policies failed in the past. Policies that encouraged Russia ended with its invasion of Georgia in 2008, Crimea in 2014, and the full scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. This is why the Polish EU rotating presidency in the first half of 2025 will concentrate on security: military, energy, food, pharma and cyber. This is why Poland will spend a record 4.7% of GDP on defense (in real terms, the fifth-largest spender in NATO), and already has the third-biggest army among member states.
In this context, the EU notes the political and economic support provided to Russia by China. In 2019, the organization accepted the paradigm that China is a partner, economic competitor and systemic rival. Due to the war and the results of the American presidential election, this assessment has changed. China supports in principle Russia’s position on the US, NATO and Western Europe. Specific Russian goals were described just before the invasion of Ukraine in the two treaty proposals from Russia to the EU and the U.S. and published on the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs website on Dec. 17, 2021.
The message was that NATO activities in former Soviet territories should be constrained and NATO should not be permitted to expand. The proposal was unacceptable to NATO members. The Russian invasion of Ukraine rendered them obsolete. NATO has a military presence on its eastern flank and previously neutral Finland and Sweden became full members.
The increasingly assertive security policies of China in the Indo-Pacific, which includes the supply of sensitive dual-use items to Russia (though denied by the authorities) may put in doubt China’s partner status in relation to the EU. As the EU’s new top diplomat Kaja Kallas stated in a hearing in Brussels, “My priority in contacts with China will be protection of the geopolitical and economic security of the EU.” The new approach to China may concentrate more on the “rival” part and on pursuing de-risking strategies, especially in areas critical for EU member security. These areas include energy transformation, the pharmaceuticals sector, agriculture and new technologies. The new sanction regime may include Chinese companies suspected of selling components of potential military use to Russia.
We can expect that America will demand that the EU follow the restrictions of trade and accept U.S. regulations and technological standards in relation to China. Incoming president Donald Trump’s policy may concentrate on “decoupling” and there may be an expectation that the EU should follow suit, given that the bloc remains a large and basically open market for Chinese products, and is dependent on China in some key industrial areas.
Should the U.S. introduce high tariffs on Chinese products, the European countries may face increased imports. This in turn may result in a more assertive EU approach, as exemplified in the antidumping duties for Chinese electric cars. China, which regards the EU as a weak body dependent on the U.S., may in turn try to increase bilateral contacts with some EU member states that rely primarily on their supply chains and China-based production. As a result, EU member states may have different views on the de-risking strategy.
China regards Russia as its ally and partner in its rivalry with the U.S. The post-1945 international order is challenged, although in different forms, by both these countries. Both accept the idea of the spheres of influence and the logic that a few big and powerful states should exercise control over the other smaller and weaker entities. China regards positively the proposals for European strategic autonomy, as that may weaken transatlantic relations. It also aspires to be a partner or a guarantor of the new European security architecture proposed by Russian President Vladimir Putin — a suggestion that is obviously unacceptable to the EU and NATO members.
The geopolitical changes after February 2022 produced some unexpected results. For the first time since the collapse of the Soviet Union most European countries started to take defense and security seriously. In 2024, the goal of spending 2% of GDP annually on defense by NATO members was reached by 20 out of 32 states (three years earlier there were six). Europe decided to produce arms and munitions to recreate the once thriving industry dismantled in the 1990s.
Most importantly, the Europeans and the like-minded East Asians came to cooperate closely with each other on security. We have now strong links with the AP4 (Australia, New Zealand, Japan and South Korea), but also with India and the Philippines.
Together, we can become resilient while facing international challenges.
Written: Wladyslaw Teofil Bartoszewski is Poland’s deputy foreign minister.
Redacted: Johanna Liander
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