4 lost years: how the EU fumbled its response to China’s belt and road
But internal documents and conversations with 10 sources involved in the EU’s infrastructure discussions reveal a bureaucracy that fought tooth and nail against using connectivity as a foreign policy tool.
A months-long investigation paints an unflattering picture of European Commission infighting, turf wars and inaction that jars with the muscular rhetoric presented by its leader, Ursula von der Leyen.
Documents seen by the South China Morning Post, however, shed light on conflicting European attitudes over how best to deal with the implications of Beijing’s growing influence in the developing world.
One document in particular, dated October 2020, shows the commission spurning a concrete proposal to compete with China – in part out of fear of “sending the wrong signal” to Beijing.
China’s Belt and Road, 10 years on
The rejected proposal contained much of the same language and rationale that would go on to underpin Global Gateway, the EU’s economic security strategy, and its more robust trade policy.
The document – written in the depths of the pandemic – looks prescient in light of the West’s subsequent clamour to wean itself off its dependencies on China. Yet, it was torpedoed by the European Commission, the union’s powerful civil service.
The proposal wanted to use connectivity to bolster “EU economic security and resilience”, to “increase EU influence over global norms and standards setting”, and to “shorten and diversify value chains and reduce dependencies”.
It wanted to replace Brussels’ Asia-focused 2018 connectivity plan with a global “foreign policy tool to protect and project the EU’s political, economic and security interests”, and “project a strong and competitive Europe”.
The response to the document supported the 2018 plan that was already on life support. “The growing importance of Asian (in particular Chinese) investments is a strategic issue for the EU and the political message should be carefully calibrated … a new strategy would send the wrong signal in that respect,” it said.
“The focus should be on fully and effectively implementing it … otherwise we would be sending the wrong message and run the risk to implicitly consider the 2018 communication a failure.”
Bureaucrats also wanted to avoid stoking internal rivalries. According to the rejection note, the new plan would “only deepen divergences” between the EU’s diplomatic arm – the EU External Action Service (EEAS) – and the departments that would eventually help to run Global Gateway which “do not support a new communication”.
Another document, dated September 2020, shows that some officials who would become key figures in Global Gateway fought against a new connectivity plan from the outset.
Among them was Koen Doens, director general of the department for international partnerships (INTPA), who “expressed reservation about the idea of a connectivity strategy”, according to an internal readout of a meeting with EEAS secretary general Stefano Sannino.
The readout, dated September 2020, shows Doens arguing that the strategy “gives an ‘antagonistic dimension’ which is not necessary”, barely a year before being handed the keys to von der Leyen’s flagship geopolitical tool.
These episodes are typical of what insiders describe as a bureaucratic resistance that they say continues to stymie the EU’s influence-building efforts.
“A machine that has totally failed to understand key geopolitical issues was promoted to lead something they actively fought against,” said a senior source who, like many of those interviewed, requested anonymity to speak freely.
Neither the European Commission nor the EEAS responded to detailed questions on this story.
When Von der Leyen eventually announced Global Gateway during her State of the Union speech in September 2021, she took a veiled swipe at China: “We want to create links and not dependencies!”
But in the early days of her commission presidency, which began in late 2019, her team appeared disinterested in the Asian connectivity strategy it had inherited, which was sitting with the diplomats in EEAS.
“There was no money, they do foreign policy, they have no real influence. So an attempt to emulate [belt and road] failed dismally,” said an EU diplomat.
A small coterie of Brussels heavyweights continued to lobby von der Leyen and her chief of cabinet Bjorn Seibert, through 2020 and 2021.
They included lawmaker Reinhard Buetikofer, German ambassador Michael Clauss – who witnessed the belt and road plan’s launch first hand when stationed in Beijing – and French ambassador Philippe Léglise-Costa.
“We were disappointed when the new administration paid no attention. It became obvious that parts of the administration were dead set opposed,” Buetikofer recalled.
But at some point in 2021, von der Leyen – who came to office vowing to run the most geopolitical commission in history – became convinced of connectivity as a foreign policy tool.
Maaike Okano Heijmans, a digital connectivity specialist with Dutch think tank the Clingendael Institute, said the strategy was now seen as “a key element in a bigger agenda, along with things like economic security”.
“It should be considered as at least part of the same coin. Global Gateway and economic security are two different ways of dealing with China,” she said.
Global Gateway’s announcement set off a scramble: suddenly there was a project, but no plan. And, to the frustration of those who saw it as a foreign policy tool, the portfolio was handed to the EU’s development arm, DG INTPA.
“[Josep] Borrell did not care and did not fight for it. Sannino was happy to hand it over to INTPA,” said one of the sources, referring to the EU’s top diplomat and his secretary general, who had jurisdiction over the plans.
Doens – who did not respond to an interview request – was now in charge of putting together a strategy he had earlier warned against.
Insiders were shocked that Europe’s initial response to Xi Jinping’s US$1 trillion infrastructure drive was a mere €40 billion (US$42.31 billion) for roads, railways and data centres. The plan “read like a development pamphlet”, said one source.
The empowerment of the department traditionally charged with delivering European aid to the developing world also led to frequent clashes with the EU’s geopolitical camp, several insiders said.
“When the project was handed to the commission, they had competency and there was no longer any resistance. However the downside was that they had no foreign policy expertise – these are development people,” a senior EU diplomat said.
“We have the same problems in our capitals, where there is a constant battle between development people and geopolitical people.”
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According to multiple sources, Seibert – von der Leyen’s right-hand man – took over and “added a few zeros” so that when Global Gateway was unveiled in December 2021, with a text that closely mirrored the rejected 2020 proposal, the number had risen to €300 billion.
Two years after von der Leyen told reporters in Brussels that Global Gateway could be a “true alternative” to China’s belt and road plan, few believe that to be the case. In Brussels’ circles, the strategy continues to suffer from an identity crisis.
Many remain confused as to what Global Gateway is supposed to be. There is little clarity on how much of the promised €300 billion is new money, while many early projects are “rebadged” existing ones.
“It became a marketing exercise,” said another EU diplomat. “Briefings we had seemed to be more about branding than anything else.”
Last year, DG INTPA was lampooned for spending US$410,000 to host an event in the metaverse to explain Global Gateway to 18- to 35-year-olds, then criticised for using the brand to promote an annual development summit – where what is supposed to be a cornerstone policy featured in just one 30-minute panel discussion.
One senior EU official recalled the apocryphal critique of European foreign policy often attributed to former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger, who is reported to have asked: “Who do I call if I want to call Europe?”.
Global Gateway had been rendered “rudderless” by the lack of a single point of contact, the official said.
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Ex-Italian prime minister and European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi rejected an approach to act as special envoy for the initiative, while calls for the appointment of a specialist commissioner were also to no avail.
Meanwhile, other countries have been clear that rather than handouts, they want strategic investment. The then Cambodian leader Hun Sen threw the offer of development aid back in the EU’s face at a 2022 Asean forum in Brussels.
“It’s true that European countries are more advanced, but Asean is not just a place to receive assistance,” Hun said, in his role as outgoing chairman of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.
Last month at a European Parliament event, the author of the rejected 2020 proposal Romana Vlahutin said the EU needs to focus on “strategic investment, not development”.
Vlahutin, the EU’s former special envoy on connectivity, declined to comment on the proposal but told the event that the strategic investment model has to be different to development aid.
“[In strategic investment], your partner has agency and interest, you have agency and interest. This is what I think our partners are asking us for, they’re not asking us for assistance, they’re asking us for equality and interests,” she said.
Martin Kimani, the Kenyan ambassador to the UN, told the same event that African nations do not want aid, but help to move up the value chain.
“The canary in the coal mine will be value-addition of African minerals in Africa. If that happens, it will be the starkest, clearest example of how Europe is changing the way the rest of the world relates to Africa,” Kimani said.
While von der Leyen started publicly pushing Global Gateway as “above all a geopolitical project”, it continued to be referred to variously as both an instrument of foreign policy and of development – sometimes by the same officials.
Noah Barkin, an analyst of EU-China relations at research house Rhodium Group, has tracked the saga since 2018. He described Global Gateway as “a poster child for Brussels dysfunction”.
“There has been a huge amount of institutional resistance. It’s remarkable that you can have the biggest member states on board, the head of the commission behind it, and yet it is still struggling to launch,” Barkin said.
Some point to a raft of 87 projects announced earlier this year as a sign of progress. “Is it too slow? Yes. But are things now finally changing? Yes,” said Okano Heijmans at Clingendael.
Others wonder how strategic those investments are, since many predate the Global Gateway itself. And while investments in areas such as critical minerals in Africa have been welcomed, they represent a drop in the ocean.
In March for example, the EU announced a €50 million (US$53 million) package of minerals and infrastructure investment in the Democratic Republic of Congo – around 0.01 per cent of the funds Global Gateway is supposed to unlock by 2027.
According to Buetikofer, the EU parliamentarian, with the “bureaucracy overwhelmed or overcome … things are now moving”. At the same time, he cannot help but rue the costly “lost years”.
“It is certainly right to say we have lost years. The first connectivity forum was 2019, the second is 2023, that means four years.”