A leading businessman recently told me that the word "reciprocity" has no literal translation in Chinese, hence the long-running mismatch of expectations between Western governments and Beijing. U.S. President Donald Trump has decided to move past translation and let crude actions do the talking by triggering a nearly trillion-dollar trade war with China. The European Union, conversely, continues to seek to discuss standards, WTO rules and shared benefits, but with little mettle to make itself understood.
The EU has opened its markets, allowing Chinese state-owned or state-backed enterprises to build a footprint in key European sectors while our own companies still struggle to access the Chinese market. This imbalance was manageable when China was a mass manufacturer. But now that it is aggressively moving up the technology chain, China is becoming a direct competitor in a global race Europe is starting with some delay.
It is against the EU's nature to take the route of Trump's protectionism, but Europe needs to adopt a more forceful strategy toward Asia to better manage the China factor.