The EU in Search of Autonomy in the Era of Chinese Expansionism and COVID-19 Pandemic

Given the global changes created by China's expanding international influence, increasingly intense Sino–American competition and the growing multi‐polarisation of the international political economy, is there any specific place that the European Union can hope to occupy? For tentative answers to this question, this analysis of Chinese economic expansionism aims to highlight the rationale behind the EU's foreign policy action and to explore how this expansionism has impacted on the preservation of the European unity and whether Chinese economic power has undermined integration and triggered disunity within the EU. We look at the period starting in 2013, the year when China launched its ‘New Silk Road’ initiative, right up to the global lockdown due to the COVID‐19 pandemic.