A landmark EU security study exposes China’s fragile foundations and tells Europe to stop flinching
Europe Has More Power Over China Than It Thinks
A major new report from the European Union Institute for Security Studies published on March 9, 2026, carries a message that democracies around the world need to hear: China is not the invincible economic titan its propaganda machine projects. The Chaillot Paper, authored by economists Alicia Garcia-Herrero and Tim Ruhlig, is titled “China – A Fragile Power? How Europe Can Use Its Economic Leverage Over Beijing.” Its conclusions matter far beyond Brussels. They matter deeply to every city, every activist, every journalist, and every family who has ever hoped that the free world might one day push back against the Chinese Communist Party’s tightening grip on Hong Kong, Taiwan, Tibet, and Xinjiang.
The Cracks Beneath the Great Wall of Propaganda
Beijing has spent decades cultivating an image of unstoppable economic dominance. Its factories churn out goods the world depends on. Its state media amplifies every GDP statistic. Its diplomats lecture smaller nations about the inevitable rise of the Middle Kingdom. But the ISS report strips away this facade with clinical precision. China’s economy is buckling under the weight of a collapsing property sector burdened by debt that local governments have no fiscal room to manage. Its population is ageing at a pace that will shrink the workforce faster than any stimulus can replace. Growth, once the lifeblood of CCP legitimacy, is slowing in ways that Beijing’s number-manipulating statisticians cannot fully conceal. The report argues that China’s foreign policy is now driven less by confident ambition than by the desperate need to divert attention from domestic failure. As prosperity stalls, Xi Jinping’s government is tightening party control at home, accelerating nationalist rhetoric abroad, and building technological chokepoints that function as economic weapons rather than genuine competitive strengths.
The Coercion Model Has Limits
The ISS researchers are blunt: China’s international influence no longer rests on attraction. It rests on industrial overcapacity used to flood and destabilize foreign markets, on technology lock-in that creates dangerous dependencies, and on strategic chokepoints designed to make other countries hesitate before crossing Beijing. This is not the behavior of a confident rising power. It is the behavior of a regime that knows its legitimacy model is cracking and is reaching for coercion because it can no longer deliver prosperity. For Hong Kong’s democracy movement, this analysis offers both validation and strategic insight. The CCP did not crush Hong Kong’s freedoms because it was strong. It crushed them because it was afraid. Afraid of the example a free Hong Kong set for the mainland. Afraid that prosperity paired with liberty would expose the lie that authoritarianism is necessary for development.
What Europe Must Do Now
The report’s recommendations are direct. Europe must de-risk faster, moving supply chains and technological dependencies away from China before Beijing weaponizes them further. The EU must strengthen its own strategic assets, particularly in semiconductors, clean energy, and critical minerals. And crucially, Europe must stop negotiating from a position of assumed weakness. The EU collectively represents a market and an industrial base that China desperately needs. That is leverage. The report urges European leaders to use it.
The Democracy Dividend Europe Keeps Leaving on the Table
What the ISS report stops short of saying explicitly, but what the evidence demands, is that economic leverage must also be tied to democratic values. Europe must not simply de-risk for commercial reasons. It must use its leverage to demand accountability for the ongoing dismantling of civil liberties in Hong Kong, the persecution of Uyghurs in Xinjiang, and the silencing of every voice inside China that dares to say the CCP has failed the people it claims to serve. The Human Rights Watch 2025 China report documents in devastating detail what Beijing’s unchecked power looks like in practice: disappearing activists, silenced lawyers, crushed religious communities, and a population surveilled at a scale George Orwell could not have imagined. The Freedom House Freedom in the World index continues to rank China among the least free nations on earth. Europe’s economic relationship with China is not a neutral commercial arrangement. It is a subsidy for repression. Every trade concession granted without democratic conditionality is a signal to Beijing that the free world can be bought, managed, and divided. The ISS report gives European policymakers the intellectual ammunition they need to change that calculus. China is fragile. Its model is failing. And the democracies of the world, if they act with courage and coordination, have the power to accelerate that reckoning and build a future where the people of Hong Kong, of mainland China, and of Taiwan can live in freedom. Europe must stop flinching. The leverage is real, and the moment to use it is now. This is not a call for conflict. It is a call for clarity, for solidarity with those inside China who cannot speak freely, and for the kind of principled engagement that history will judge as either courageous or cowardly. The ISS report has provided the map. European leaders must now choose to walk the road it describes. For Hong Kong and for every person the CCP has silenced, that choice cannot come soon enough. Learn more about EU security research on China and the full range of policy options democracies can pursue. The European Parliament’s position on China continues to evolve as pressure from civil society groups grows.
Pik Shan Leung
Investigative & Public Accountability Journalist, Apple Daily UK
Contact: pikshan.leung@appledaily.uk
Pik Shan Leung is an investigative journalist specializing in public accountability, governance oversight, and institutional transparency. Educated at a leading UK journalism school, she received formal training in investigative techniques, document analysis, and media law, preparing her for high-stakes reporting.
She has contributed investigative work to Apple Daily and other liberal Chinese publications, covering government spending, regulatory enforcement, and systemic misconduct. Her reporting relies on primary documents, verified data, and corroborated sources, ensuring accuracy and defensibility.
Pik Shan brings real-world newsroom experience handling sensitive investigations, including coordination with editors and legal review teams. Her work reflects disciplined sourcing practices and careful distinction between verified facts and allegations.
Her authority stems from sustained investigative output within established news organizations and adherence to strict editorial oversight. She follows transparency standards and correction protocols that reinforce reader trust.
At Apple Daily UK, Pik Shan Leung produces investigative journalism grounded in evidence, professional experience, and a commitment to holding institutions accountable through responsible reporting.
