Can the European Union's Global Gateway Challenge China's Belt and Road Initiative?

Abstract

This chapter examines China's technological advance and its relevance to European strategic sovereignty. The following sections deal with the shifting paradigms and how they reshape a key concept in this context: interdependence. The chapter then turns its attention towards China's innovation capacity, explaining how it has become an innovation powerhouse from an unlikely candidate for digital innovation and why its future success is still being determined. The next section explores how China's technological advance translates into a global power and how the EU's Global Gateway can become a rival to the Belt and Road Initiative. The chapter concludes with a broad research agenda to understand the EU's and China's future technological trajectories. This will be a prerequisite for developing adequate and effective European policies so that the Union retains its freedom of action in world affairs.