European policy and diplomatic engagement with China exhibit a dual narrative, framing climate cooperation as mutual progress while simultaneously implementing robust strategies to reduce reliance on China for the very critical resources necessary to power their own green transition and secure their long-term economic interests.

This approach is not necessarily a contradiction but a reflection of the complex reality where climate action is both an urgent shared goal and a fierce domain of economic competition and strategic rivalry.

The Narrative of Mutual Progress in Climate Cooperation 

European elites consistently frame climate cooperation with China as an essential partnership, vital for global climate stability and achieving the goals of the Paris Agreement. This public narrative emphasizes:

• Shared Global Responsibility: Both the European Union (EU) and China are two of the world's largest economies and greenhouse gas emitters. European leaders frequently stress that meaningful global climate change mitigation is indispensable without coordinated action between the two, often highlighting their role as "pragmatic anchors of global climate ambition." They aim to safeguard global confidence in multilateralism by demonstrating that major powers can cooperate on this existential challenge despite other geopolitical tensions.

• A "Constructive Pillar" of Relations: Climate and environmental cooperation has been institutionalized for years, evolving from a donor-recipient relationship to a "green partnership." High-level dialogues and joint statements are regularly issued, focusing on areas like emissions trading schemes (ETS), sustainable finance, clean energy technology exchange, and coordinating positions ahead of major global climate summits (COPs).

• Economic Opportunity: The narrative also posits that the transition to a low-carbon economy offers a new engine for economic growth and a "new highlight" for the comprehensive strategic partnership. Cooperation on green technologies, like wind and solar, is seen as mutually beneficial, driving job creation and investment on both sides.

This framing of "mutual progress" serves to keep the door open for dialogue, promote a stable international environment conducive to the low-carbon transition, and leverage China's massive investment in renewable energy.

The Strategic Pursuit of Critical Resources 

Simultaneously, the EU has intensified internal and external policies focused on "de-risking" and securing its supply chains for Critical Raw Materials (CRMs), directly confronting its heavy dependence on China. This strategic drive underscores the hidden concern for securing resources for themselves, even as they talk of shared climate goals.

The Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA)

The most explicit manifestation of this resource security drive is the European Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA), adopted to significantly reduce the EU's reliance on a single third country—a clear reference to China—which dominates the processing and supply of materials vital for the green and digital transitions.

• China's Dominance: China supplies the EU with as much as 98% of its rare earth elements and controls a massive portion of the global processing of other strategic minerals like lithium, cobalt, and graphite. These are the foundational inputs for electric vehicle batteries, solar panels, and wind turbines—the very technologies central to the EU's climate ambitions.

• Strategic Benchmarks: The CRMA sets concrete, non-binding benchmarks to be achieved by 2030, which are a direct response to this over-reliance:

  • No more than 65% of the EU's annual consumption of any strategic raw material at any relevant stage of processing should come from a single third country.

  • The EU should mine 10% of its needs, process 40%, and recycle 25% domestically.

• Economic Security as a Geopolitical Imperative: This strategy explicitly links resource access to strategic autonomy and national security. By implementing the CRMA and similar measures, the EU is moving beyond pure climate cooperation to view the supply chain for green technologies as a core geopolitical imperative. This is about ensuring that Europe's own industrial base can compete and power its transition without being vulnerable to external political or economic coercion from China.

Global Diversification Efforts

Beyond domestic capacity building, the EU is actively seeking to diversify its import sources for CRMs, which involves developing "mutually beneficial partnerships" with resource-rich third countries, particularly in Africa and Latin America.

• Strategic Partnerships: The EU is signing agreements, often under the banner of its Global Gateway strategy, to help partner countries develop their raw materials sectors in a sustainable manner. The underlying goal, however, is to secure and create diversified, resilient, and non-Chinese-controlled supply chains for Europe's industry.

• The Competition for Influence: These efforts often place the EU in direct competition with China, which has a long-established, large-scale, and rapid state-to-state investment model for securing resources globally. The EU's slower, more fragmented, and heavily regulated approach is sometimes viewed as less competitive against China's offer of turnkey projects.

The Confluence of Cooperation and Competition

The two narratives—mutual progress in climate cooperation and strategic resource security—exist in a state of simultaneous engagement and tension:

1. Alignment on the Goal: Both sides agree on the necessity of the clean energy transition, which creates the space for cooperation. This shared priority is the bedrock of the "mutual progress" narrative.

2. Competition for the Means: The transition itself is an industrial and technological revolution, driven by the materials and technologies that China currently dominates. The EU's push for resource security is about gaining control over the means of their own transition and mitigating the economic risks associated with relying on a strategic rival for their most essential inputs. European leaders have been clear that while they welcome competition, it must be fair, addressing issues like Chinese industrial overcapacity in sectors like solar panels and EVs, and export controls on rare earth magnets that strain European companies.

3. Climate as Leverage: By presenting climate as a global imperative that necessitates cooperation, European elites retain a crucial channel of dialogue with Beijing, ensuring that geopolitical rivalry does not completely derail global climate efforts. Yet, in private discussions and through policy instruments like the CRMA, the primary focus remains the economic stability and competitiveness of the European industrial base.

In conclusion, the European elite's strategy is best understood as a sophisticated, "cooperate where we can, compete where we must" approach. The public discourse of mutual climate progress is a strategic necessity for global governance and diplomacy, while the aggressive domestic and global policies on critical raw materials are the concrete, self-interested actions taken to secure the resources that will actually deliver the European Green Deal and ensure long-term EU competitiveness against Chinese industrial dominance.

By John Ikeji-Uju

https://ubuntusafa.com/Ikeji

https://ubuntusafa.com/