Trade with Russia has not made it any less threatening to European security. Trade with China has made it richer and more powerful, but not more liberal or democratic. As Hillary Clinton wrote recently, China—not Russia—is now “the greatest long-term challenge to the future of democracy.”
In Washington, Clinton’s view is part of the mainstream. But does Europe see it that way? If it does, surely there has to be a shared approach to the threat, creating closer economic unity within the West to reflect the new reality that trade cannot be separated from geopolitics. If it does not, a future President Trump or one of his followers will pose the same set of questions Trump posed about Russia in 2017: Why are we defending these guys if they are not on our side in the main fight?
Right now, despite the impressive unity within the West over Ukraine, we can see the limits to how much pain Europe is prepared to endure to pressure Russia. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has warned that he will not agree to a total ban on Russian energy imports, which, he said, would mean “plunging our country and all of Europe into a recession.” If disengaging with Russia is this hard, imagine how difficult it will be to find a Western consensus to oppose China, a far more powerful and economically important country.
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