Russia’s war on Ukraine has triggered a profound reassessment in European capitals of their individual and collective relations with China.
Confronted by the need to rapidly unwind a dependence on Russian energy built up over decades, government officials from Rome to Prague are now reevaluating the extent of their economic and political ties to China.
Senior lawmakers in Berlin, who now concede that such closeness to Russia was a historic liability, are starting to see the danger of repeating the mistake with another authoritarian regime, and are raising alarm bells over Germany’s status as Beijing’s largest European trading partner.