Trump is hammering his European allies — and the cracks are widening by the day. Some analysts believe this accelerating transatlantic divide is handing China a rare window of strategic breathing room. The catch: Beijing must keep its nerve and resist being drawn passively into Washington's chess game.
According to the South China Morning Post, Trump ordered the withdrawal of 5,000 troops from Germany in recent days. He also threatened to slash the US military presence in Italy and Spain. At the same time, he repeatedly cited allied nations' refusal to support military action against Iran as grounds to pull out of NATO altogether.
This is not a sudden rupture — it has been building since Trump's return to the White House. NATO allies had long been bracing for US troop reductions. The Trump administration has repeatedly warned that Europe can no longer count on American security guarantees and must shoulder more of the burden on both defense spending and support for Ukraine.
America's retreat is pushing traditional allies to scramble for new anchors.
Since the beginning of this year, leaders from the UK, Canada, Finland, Spain, and other countries have visited China in rapid succession. Their aim is twofold: to hedge against the unpredictability of US policy, and to fill the vacuum Washington has left on issues such as climate change.
Ma Bo, Associate Professor at the School of International Studies, Nanjing University, argues that Beijing's best move is patience — let Washington's own actions do the damage. "As long as China avoids direct confrontation with the US in the short term, Washington's damage to its own alliance system may actually relieve pressure on China," Ma said. China's top priority, in his view, is to keep a cool head: avoid being drawn into conflicts it did not start, and prevent the US from redirecting its attention back towards China.
Zhao Minghao, Deputy Director of the Centre for American Studies at Fudan University, goes further. The fractures in the US alliance system are accelerating, he says, and the impact will be "far-reaching and enduring." A number of Western countries — including Germany — are actively working to repair ties with China. That suits Beijing well, as every major player now recognizes the need to reduce exposure to US-driven risk.
The reality is that political warmth between China and Europe does not translate automatically into economic openness. Despite the political tensions between Washington and Brussels, the EU's economic stance towards China remains guarded. European officials continue to accuse China of using industrial policy to prop up its companies and undercutting European markets with low-priced goods.
The EU has now introduced the Industrial Accelerator Act, targeting foreign investment in four emerging strategic sectors: batteries, electric vehicles, solar photovoltaics, and critical raw materials. The Act imposes mandatory technology transfer requirements, caps on foreign equity stakes, and local content requirements. Analysts warn that these "EU-first" provisions could deepen global trade friction.
Chatham House has noted that the "Europe-first" mechanisms embedded in the Act represent a significant revision of the EU's long-standing commitment to free trade. Some European industry groups and officials within the EU itself have also raised concerns that the new rules could raise business costs and disrupt supply chains. The US journal Eurasian Review has noted the stark contrast at play: Western economies remain deeply intertwined with China, which dominates clean energy technology and upholds free trade — a posture that stands in sharp relief against American unilateralism.
China's Ministry of Commerce has been equally direct. It has repeatedly stressed that China and the EU are each other's important trade and economic partners. It has urged the EU to take the lead in upholding WTO rules and return to a path of fair, transparent, and non-discriminatory cooperation as soon as possible.
On 27 April, a Ministry spokesperson confirmed that China had submitted formal comments to the European Commission expressing grave concerns. China remains willing to engage in dialogue. But the Ministry was unequivocal: if the EU disregards China's views and presses ahead with enacting the Act into law — thereby harming the interests of Chinese enterprises — China will have no choice but to take countermeasures to firmly defend the lawful rights and interests of Chinese enterprises.
Deep Throat
** 博客文章文責自負,不代表本公司立場 **
Something telling happened in the Japanese parliament recently. A lawmaker said something the government found deeply uncomfortable — something that happened to be true — and was promptly accused of making a gaffe. What she said inadvertently laid bare the Self-Defense Force's most glaring embarrassment, setting off a storm of public debate.
A Parliamentary Question That Triggered a PR Crisis
Koga Chikage, a Constitutional Democratic Party (CDP) member of the House of Councillors, spent over 30 years teaching at primary and secondary schools in Fukuoka Prefecture. On June 15, she appeared before the Senate Budget Committee to question Defense Minister Koizumi Shinjiro on a children's booklet produced by the Ministry of Defense “Easy to Understand! Japan's Defense”.
The booklet tells Japanese children that the military capabilities of China, North Korea, and Russia pose a security threat to Japan and its surroundings.
Koga raised a concern: Japanese schools have children from China, North Korea, and Russia too — would content like this hurt their feelings? She asked the government to explain whether the feelings of these children had been considered when the materials were written.
This was never going to sit well with Japan's conservative commentariat. Yet for those who believe peace matters more than confrontation, the question itself was entirely reasonable.
Then came her second remark — the one that blew up in her face: "Children from economically disadvantaged families join the SDF." She added, "No children from rich families become SDF members."
The chamber erupted. Koizumi Shinjiro seized the moment: Koga had spoken at length about concern for the feelings of Chinese children — but didn't her remark that "only poor kids join the military" do precisely the same harm to the children of SDF members? Koga was left speechless, acknowledged her words were inappropriate, and retracted them.
By June 17, the fallout had escalated further. CDP party leader Mizuoka Toshikazu felt compelled to issue a public apology at an internal party meeting, stating that Koga's remarks had shown a "lack of consideration for the feelings of SDF personnel, their families, and those connected to them." The party expressed its deep regret.
The More People Criticize, the More the Numbers Stand Out
The incident spread rapidly across Japanese social media, with public anger zeroing in on Koga's alleged "discrimination against SDF personnel." While Japan was busy tearing itself apart online, one question went conspicuously unanswered: how much truth was there in what Koga actually said?
Japan's accelerating military expansion has been raising alarm across East Asia for some time. Since Abe Shinzo entrenched his "strong military" doctrine, Japan's defense budget has risen for 14 consecutive years. This year it breaks all previous records as Japan charges toward the 2% of GDP target demanded by the United States — a figure equivalent to Japan spending over HK$450 billion annually on armaments.
Military spending can be inflated year after year by parliamentary vote. Young people, however, voted differently.
The Japan Self-Defense Force — Japan's military, which cannot be called an army under constitutional constraints — has repeatedly fallen short of its recruitment targets in recent years. In 2023, the annual recruitment goal was approximately 20,000; fewer than half were actually enlisted.
The shortfall has widened every year, and the overall headcount now sits more than 20,000 below approved strength. The Ministry of Defense's own documents have acknowledged that the recruitment environment remains "persistently severe" and that securing personnel has become "the paramount challenge."
The reason is not difficult to understand. Japan's labor market is acutely short-staffed across virtually every sector: convenience stores post hiring notices, logistics companies raise wages to poach workers, and tech firms offer premium salaries to attract talent.
Young people have no shortage of options. In this environment, persuading someone to give up relatively flexible employment and submit to rigorous military training and constant deployment readiness has become a markedly harder sell.
Young People Are Voting With Their Feet
The Ministry of Defense's official explanation for the recruitment crisis points to Japan's declining birth rate and shrinking workforce. The convenient thing about this framing is that it blames demographic structure, sparing the government from confronting a more uncomfortable question: Japanese young people are not without choices; they simply have not chosen the SDF.
Opinion polls have long pointed to a deeper contradiction. A JNN survey found that while 53% of the public say they support increasing defense spending, opposition jumps to 71% when the question is made concrete: "funding military expenditure through tax increases." People support having someone enlist, just not necessarily their own children. People back higher defense spending, just not if it comes out of their own pockets.
A teacher of over 30 years, instinctively remarking in parliament that "children from better-off families don't join the military" — however politically incorrect that statement may be in Japan's public discourse, the social reality it reflects was clearly not conjured from thin air.
The Ghost of Militarism Frightens No One
Japan's authorities show no sign of listening to what the public mood is telling them. Since the Abe era, Japan has been treading an ever more unmistakable path toward the rehabilitation of militarism: record-breaking defense budgets, renewed momentum to revise the constitution, and children's educational materials that openly portray neighboring countries as threats.
Figures such as Takaichi Sanae have repeatedly issued provocative statements, championing confrontation with scant regard for regional stability. China has on multiple occasions made its position unambiguously clear: the historical crimes of Japanese militarism are seared into the memory of the peoples of Asia, and any attempt to retrace that path is a betrayal of history and a threat to regional peace.
Defense budgets can be voted through parliament year after year. Children's booklets can be printed and distributed in thousands. But no law can compel young people to put on a uniform with any genuine willingness. Year after year, fewer Japanese young people are walking into recruitment offices. That, without question, is the most clear-eyed rejection that Japan's youth has delivered against the country's drive to rehabilitate militarism.
