The People’s Republic of China celebrated its 70th birthday with a sense of great ceremony last October. Many see it as a marker for the decline of the West and in particular of Europe, which has recently been entangled in Brexit and other internal issues. China's economic and geopolitical successes, with the much more assertive leadership of Xi Jinping, may actually be a huge gift to Europe, and the beginning of the continent’s own Renaissance.
Never before has Europe's economic leadership been put so much in question: the China 2025 plan, which for the first time put the goal of replacing foreign companies by Chinese ones in a number of strategic areas in black and white, caused shock waves in Berlin and Paris. The realisation that technology will be key in the 21st century has been a brutal awakening; we need to realise that 5G is the strategic infrastructure of tomorrow's ultra-connected world, artificial intelligence is the indispensable tool to understanding an increasingly complex world, facial recognition is a new means for interaction between state and citizen and cyber is integral in protecting our supply chains.
For all of this, scale is critical, and the European single market must, therefore, be completed at all costs and without further delay – a situation that is still not the case for capital, digital or data. This is the mother of all battles in Europe, together with a complete reset in our execution capability. We need to think in weeks and not years in order to stay relevant.
China’s ability to go up the competence ladder with the generous opening of world markets through WTO and protective joint-venture strategies demonstrates the importance of a clear vision. China’s ultra-pragmatic approach makes the country fertile ground for experimentation. One symbol of this is Shenzhen – once a port of 200,000 and now the world’s capital of hardware, hosting world-leading tech companies and 20 million inhabitants. With agility and experimentation being the key to success today, Europe must get rid of its technocratic trappings and make its execution capability radically more flexible and effective.
Europe's political leadership is also at risk. No country in the world has contributed so much to the reduction of poverty as China. 300 million people there have been lifted out of poverty in the last forty years. On long-term vision and ability to prepare for the future – as highlighted by infrastructure and education data in the Shanghai and Pisa rankings – China has been exceptionally effective. Democracies in turn must reinvent a healthy public debate in the age of social networks, where horizontal decision-making is in high demand.
The achievements of the Chinese system, where the Party manages to be both omnipotent and to integrate all potentially divergent constituents - elites, entrepreneurs, many intellectuals - should compel Europeans to reinvent democracy. They must reconcile long-term thinking with electoral deadlines in order to involve citizens in the democratic processes and execute centrally only what can’t be done at a local level.
This is the exact opposite of the current ‘subsidiarity principle’, which I would call condescending decentralization. The EU needs a democratic revolution, or else it will increasingly be hijacked by emergencies and unable to think far and wide. The acceptance in China of social scoring – something even Aldous Huxley could not have dreamt of – should make us think about the demand for stability by citizens, to which Europe is not immune.
Finally, Europe’s humanist values and influence in the world are under serious threat. China’s economic success – even at the cost of creating a highly unequal society – is a magnet in Africa and South America, much more than a fascination for the China Dream.
Let us not underestimate China’s ability to position itself on forward-looking topics. Many in the scientific community were fascinated by the Chinese space programme’s landing on the dark side of the Moon. Similarly, China is leading in the energy revolution, with 50% of installed renewable energy, 95% of global solar panel production and 55% of all battery production.
The Green Deal announced by the new EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen must be implemented clearly and quickly, or else Europe faces the risk of having its historic leadership in sustainability vanish. There must be a real strategy of partnership – not of ‘aid’ policies – with Africa, the frontier of the 21st century. Europe cannot allow dynamic countries like Rwanda and Ethiopia turn to China for its effective persistence and engagement. Time is running out. Europe must be a superpower – a strong, bold, benevolent and strategic partner for the world.
André Loesekrug-Pietri is Executive Director of the Joint European Disruptive Initiative (JEDI)
