This should be absolutely common sense, and failing to do so would be a strategic mistake of the highest order by Europe.

There’s a fascinating parallel to be made between the current geopolitical situation and that of China’s “Six Fallen States” story during the Warring States period.

Su Xun, a famous scholar of the Northern Song Dynasty, wrote about it: https://codeforces.com/blog/entry/101547

This was a time when several Chinese states – in fact all 6 of them, hence the name “6 fallen states” – fell to Qin, another state which as a consequence managed to unify China for the first time under the Qin dynasty about 2,300 years ago (which is where the name “China” comes from, incidentally).

How did Qin achieve this? Interestingly not so much through military defeat as through a policy of appeasement by the other states – where they progressively ceded territory for what they thought was “buying peace”. To quote Su Xun, “giving lands to Qin to gain peace [was] just like carrying firewood to put out a fire, the fire will go on as long as the firewood is being supplied”. Su Xun also noted that the six states were “overwhelmed by their enemy’s bluster” – a psychological tactic that led them to hand over resources, simultaneously weakening themselves while strengthening Qin.

These six states, despite their collective strength which far exceeded that of Qin, were gradually consumed by their own strategic myopia: some tried to buy security through submission, others aligned with the aggressor against their natural allies, while the rest fought alone and fell one by one.

In this instance China and European countries together are obviously natural allies as none of them would – theoretically – want their sovereignty to be challenged by the US. Neither wants stuff like trade wars, ceding territory (like Greenland for Europe), digital colonization, etc. So it would make perfect sense for them to maintain independent relations and sometimes work jointly to pressure the US when their interests align. If they work together, there’s very little Trump can do to intimidate them, as they make up more than double of the US’s GDP.

Signaling to Trump that Europe would never do so and instead follow him blindly to contain China, as Europe is already doing for instance with semiconductors sanctions (thereby ceding its economic sovereignty), is akin to “carrying firewood to put out a fire”, i.e. suicidal strategic myopia. And Trump’s characteristic bluster mirrors Qin’s psychological tactics perfectly – designed to overwhelm Europe into a deer-in-the-headlights response of proposing concessions at their own expense.

Su Xun lamented that in his text “if those three states had not bribed Qin with land, Qi had not been in union with Qin… there would have been a chance for those six states to win Qin.” That’s the parallel: a Europe that maintains strategic autonomy while coordinating with China where interests align has a very good shot at balancing the US, but a much weaker hand if it doesn’t.

So unless Europe wants to be part and parcel of an upcoming Trump dynasty or something equivalent (pathetic vassal states which, to quote Putin, “sweetly wag their tails” before Trump), they better heed the lessons of history. As Su Xun concluded in his analysis of the Six Fallen States: “The monarch of a state should not be overwhelmed by its enemies’ bluster.” Europe would do well to remember this wisdom today.

Vir: Arnaud Betrand via X