How Can Europe Compete with China? Time Is Running Out

And I wanted to highlight what you said also about the Chinese official and real GDP growth.

There's been a number of studies.

I remember one from Chicago University combining kind of trying to track the actual GDP around the world and its correlation with the lights being observed from space.

And the correlation in China seems very oddly off charts, giving an estimate of really a big gap between what is being really produced, as GDP is supposed to measure that, and statistics that is being officially informed.

So thank you for also giving a bit of interest into the real numbers of Chinese economy.

Yeah, and I just wanted to say it matters for de-risking, right? Because the reason why we are seeing so much more exports from China is because there's not enough demand.

So it's really linked to the very slow growth in China.

And it's also, I mean, the narrative that China is projecting is, you know, China is meant to be ever stronger, right, and to rise.

And I mean, actually, we have all outgrown China in recent years.

China has grown very, very little.

And it matters because it's not as much the giant and growing market that we expected it to be.

Yeah, correct.

And one other important developments of the recent weeks, as we spoke just about Xi Jinping and Trump, was the State of the Union.

Ursula von der Leyen addressed European parliamentarians, officials, a number of government representatives, many were in Strasbourg when she was in the middle of September speaking on the ambitions and goals and objectives of Europe.

And then there is this China question.

And actually, I would say contrary to our expectations at the Europe Future Forum, we just had a day before a discussion between Teresa Fallon and Matej Simalczyk about Europe not being very good at naming the problem and trying this policy of being basically blindfolded in navigating the world of today's economic statecraft.

And then we had Ursula speaking with strong tone, quite surprisingly to my mind, And I wonder what's your reading of that and what to expect of the European ambitions in terms of policy, because she also promised that there will be deeds to follow, not just words, from the State of the Union when she spoke on China specifically.

So

what does Europe have down the sleeve, so to say, in its economic security strategy when it comes to China, its diplomacy and economy when dealing with Chinese ambitions?