Visits by Western leaders to Beijing in December, including French President Emmanuel Macron and, more recently, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and British Keir Starmer, as well as German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s planned visit later this month, may suggest that a major geopolitical realignment is afoot. But to interpret these visits as a strategic departure from the United States is to mistake tactical adaptation for fundamental realignment. What we are witnessing is the pursuit of economic realism alongside durable security alliances, and this balancing act is not fundamentally disrupted by China’s charm offensive.
In the early stages of President Donald Trump’s second term, U.S. allies sought to strike a delicate balance between maintaining economic ties with China while seeking to avoid strategic risks by strategically aligning with the United States against perceived threats from China and Russia. But President Trump’s protracted trade war, rough treatment of European and North American partners, and coercive threats have shattered any illusions of a united Western front. This disorientation soon found its voice in Canadian Prime Minister John Carney’s Davos speech.
He declared the end of the U.S.-led rules-based international order, describing the situation as a “rupture” rather than a transition, saying, “The strong can do all they can, and the weak must suffer.” This crystallized disillusionment and created political and diplomatic rifts that Beijing was quick to explore and exploit if possible.
Against this background, the diplomatic pivot to China reveals its true meaning. Western leaders are not supporting China, but pursuing what Carney called a “third way” for middle powers, a search for “strategic autonomy” in energy, critical minerals, and supply chains to avoid becoming collateral for great power coercion. Rather than replacing one patron with another, these visits focus on economic diversification and risk mitigation. Evidence from these visits reveals the harsh limits of Beijing’s courtship. The joint statement emphasizes practical cooperation but avoids fundamental strategic shifts, emphasizing its transactional rather than transformative nature.
This pattern highlights the critical reality that economic realism confronts an abiding priority: basic security. This priority was clearly demonstrated when Australia tried to take back the Port of Darwin from its Chinese lessors, despite the port’s profitability and regulatory reviews finding no security threats. That a formal assessment found no imminent security risk only emphasizes that point. In moments of strategic uncertainty, recognition and alliance alignment can outweigh technocratic assessments, indicating where ultimate loyalties lie.
In alliance politics, signaling is often as important as reputation. Despite the deep and structural importance of trade between the European Union and China, European allies are honoring U.S. intelligence-sharing and defense commitments. Despite rhetorical tensions with Washington, European countries are increasing defense spending toward NATO’s 2% threshold, deepening military cooperation over Ukraine, and strengthening the institutional foundations of transatlantic security. Their grievances have fueled calls for restraint rather than support for a China-led confrontation, revealing rifts rooted in issues deeper than trade.
At the root of transactional politics lies a civilizational divide, a gap that neither diplomatic expediency nor economic realism can bridge. In Europe, Canada, and Australia, the legacy of a common Western identity has permeated elite consciousness, fostering assumptions of cultural affinity that are amplified by instinctive fears that China’s state-led capitalist model poses a systemic threat to the liberal democratic order. This identity is not just cultural but institutional, embedded in NATO interoperability, Five Eyes intelligence integration, and decades of joint operational planning. This anxiety goes beyond protectionism and represents an existential struggle to maintain institutional and ideological hegemony. The double standard is clear. While America’s predatory behavior is framed as a regrettable aberration, China’s trade practices are cast as a fundamental systemic challenge. As a result, trade disputes with Washington will fade into the background of this deeper dissonance.
For major Asian allies like Japan and South Korea, the alliance with the United States is the basis of their sovereignty. Their postwar identity was forged under the auspices of U.S. security, with an integrated defense system and political culture creating deep bonds. For Tokyo and Seoul, China’s rise has stirred historic fears that they may fall into a new sphere of influence. Thus, despite lobbying against decoupling with China, South Korea’s semiconductor giants have strengthened joint research with the United States, seeing the costs of a relationship with Washington as negligible given the risks of China’s regional dominance.
This loyalty is most evident in information sharing. For Canada, Australia and New Zealand, the Five Eyes network, with its roots in Allied code-breaking in World War II, represents common strategic DNA with Washington. Real-time intelligence sharing builds trust beyond just profit. Australia still bans Huawei from its 5G network despite knowing China could block iron ore exports. This reflects a civilized kinship, a bond that cannot be replaced by China’s trade agreements, as any resistance would risk strategic suicide.
This deep-rooted loyalty sets the non-negotiable boundaries around which economic hedging takes place. German automakers could defy a US high-tech ban, Australian universities could host Confucius Institutes, and Japan could export through factories in China. They may even rhetorically support China’s appeal to the WTO against US tariffs. However, when asked to side with China against the United States on maintaining the rules-based order, these allies balk, consistently choosing alliance management over systemic defense. The math remains clear. Trade with China will help us prosper, but our alliance with the US will ensure our survival.
In this way, an unbroken chain of loyalty continues, which could be described as “calculated hypocrisy.” This represents a pattern in which allies publicly criticize Washington’s coercive tactics while privately strengthening security structures that depend on them. Quietly huddled under the security umbrella, allies have publicly criticized U.S. coercion tactics and issued rules-based commands they expect China to follow, but hesitate to enforce when the U.S. bends the rules. Despite U.S. economic uncertainty and China’s clean technology advantage, Washington’s network of alliances remains a key advantage for the United States. Decades of military exercises, academic exchanges, and shared values have created a resilience that China’s petty diplomacy cannot overcome. Despite its dominance in rare earth refining and its growing strength across the AI supply chain and ecosystem, China still lacks the trust to turn partners into strategic allies.
Ultimately, the Beijing visit points to a broader problem: the failure of U.S. coercive policies to maintain alliance cohesion. But engagement with China is not a cure. The Third Way remains an uncertain experiment, constrained by hard truths. Allies seek autonomy but lack realistic alternatives to U.S. security. The new order will be defined by this tense balance, by active hedging, rather than by a decisive readjustment. They may distance themselves from American unilateralism, but they are not in China’s orbit. Their prudent and pragmatic policy reveals great illusions. This is a story of resilience, not readjustment.
The success of this strategy depends on resolving the core contradictions. It is the pursuit of strategic autonomy while relying on security protectorates that often undermine it. Coercion can undermine cohesion, but structural integration preserves cohesion. Therefore, the “Third Way” is less a stable path than a constant and dangerous balancing act over the abyss of great power rivalry.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial stance of Al Jazeera.
