Strategic Autonomy in Practice: France’s High-Stakes Diplomacy with China

France’s renewed diplomatic engagement with China has become a defining test of Europe’s long-debated ambition for strategic autonomy. This intelligence product by Global Eye Intelligence delivers a clear, structured assessment of how Paris is attempting to translate autonomy from rhetoric into practice—amid intensifying U.S.–China rivalry, supply chain fragmentation, and mounting pressure on European unity.

The analysis examines France’s effort to position itself, and by extension Europe, as an independent global actor capable of engaging China on trade, technology, energy, and global governance without being locked into binary alignments. It evaluates key cooperation areas including nuclear energy, aerospace, green technologies, artificial intelligence, and advanced manufacturing, while also highlighting unresolved frictions around market access, export controls, trade imbalances, and critical minerals.

Crucially, the product interrogates the core contradiction at the heart of Europe’s autonomy project: the tension between national-level diplomacy and the need for collective EU leverage. While France’s approach opens space for pragmatic engagement and economic opportunity, it also exposes vulnerabilities—uneven member-state alignment, limited enforcement power, and the risk of autonomy becoming symbolic rather than structural.

Why this matters now: Europe’s choices toward China will shape its economic resilience, geopolitical credibility, and negotiating power for the next decade. Those who understand this diplomatic balancing act early will anticipate whether Europe emerges as an independent pole—or remains strategically constrained.

Follow Global Eye Intelligence to stay ahead of Europe’s most consequential geopolitical recalibrations before positions harden into policy.