It is no longer a China versus the West, nor the West versus the rest. In fact, we no longer live in a world of blocs at all. Instead, we are moving into a world of issues-based cooperation.
This is perhaps clearest from the cavalcade of leaders who are visiting Beijing. Already, French President Emmanuel Macron, South Korean President Lee Jae-myung, Taoiseach of Ireland Micheál Martin, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, and U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer have all visited China in recent months. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz is expected to begin his visit in February. Even U.S. President Donald Trump is set to visit in April.
It is no longer a China versus the West, nor the West versus the rest. In fact, we no longer live in a world of blocs at all. Instead, we are moving into a world of issues-based cooperation.
This is perhaps clearest from the cavalcade of leaders who are visiting Beijing. Already, French President Emmanuel Macron, South Korean President Lee Jae-myung, Taoiseach of Ireland Micheál Martin, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, and U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer have all visited China in recent months. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz is expected to begin his visit in February. Even U.S. President Donald Trump is set to visit in April.
At its core, these visits are a response to the erosion of the post-Cold War order, whose death became the main topic of discussion at the recent World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. With Washington no longer serving as a reliable steward of the multilateral system, the European Union’s long-standing pursuit of strategic autonomy is moving from rhetoric to practice. The result will be Europe’s emergence as an independent pole, one defined by regulatory power, economic gravity, and normative influence.
What has changed most fundamentally is not the disappearance of values but their role in global alignment. For much of the post-Cold War period, perceptions of shared values sustained bloc loyalty, even when material interests diverged. It was a “community of shared values” that created the G-7 and NATO. It was a set of shared values that saw much of the Western world intervene together in the Balkans in 1999, fight in Afghanistan together after 9/11, and join forces to support Ukraine.
Over the past decade, this same Euro-Atlantic community was gradually moving toward a consensus that China was hostile to the community of liberal Western states and should be isolated with a cordon sanitaire. But even that unity, such as it was, is now at an end. With Washington attacking Europe rather than trying to rally it, Canada, the U.K., and the EU have all begun to reach out to China to engage on their own terms.
Yet despite some predictions, this will not result in lasting Chinese-European alignment. Instead, the world is entering a contested phase of multipolar governance without bloc-based communities. To borrow the words of Carney, there are now “different coalitions for different issues based on common values and interests.” Climate cooperation does not need to follow security alliances. Trade governance does not align neatly with bloc-based technological standards. Artificial intelligence, supply chains, and health security each generate their own constellations of cooperation.
Trade governance offers a clear illustration of this shift. The Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, once conceived as a U.S.-led instrument of regional economic statecraft, is now effectively stewarded by middle powers. With the United Kingdom already acceding, China applying, and the European Union seeking its own closer affiliation, the agreement has evolved into a post-bloc platform shaped less by ideology than by rules, standards, and mutual economic interest.
The same dynamics can be seen in other critical policy domains: China’s green industrial capacity—spanning solar, wind, batteries, electric mobility, and grid equipment—has driven global decarbonization. Yet for years, the United States cajoled its allies to limit uptake of Chinese green technology. Now, Europe and Canada are freed from the blinders of bloc-shaped politics and increasingly able engage with Chinese capacity and expertise wholly on their own terms.
Similarly, the European Union and China both remain committed to multilateral governance and institutional reform. Both maintain that they share a responsibility to uphold an international rules-based order rooted in the United Nations and in advancing reform of the World Trade Organization, such as the restoration of its dispute settlement function, including the Multi-Party Interim Appeal Arbitration Arrangement.
But amid this convergence, areas of divergence remain, including trade remedies, market access, and industrial policy. This is why, despite recent tangible improvements in EU-China dialogue, the European Union will continue to act primarily as a balancing pole. The member nations of the EU still maintain security ties with the Washington, and the EU itself is engaging on its own terms with China rather than joining a new camp.
In this emerging world, the EU can hold on to the values that it does not share with China while still cooperating on shared interests.
This new configuration increasingly resembles a Romance of the Three Kingdoms-style balance rather than a binary confrontation. In this classic Chinese narrative, no single kingdom is able to dominate outright, and power remains contested. Just as in the novel, there is now a growing field of middle powers with their own agency shaping the state of play. The result is a setting where all are compelled to negotiate, hedge, and adapt, whether small or large.
China remains deeply embedded in global supply chains and consistently engaged in multilateral institutions. For decades, China has been happy to work with countries across the global south without conditions while advocating consistently for multilateralism, sovereignty, stability, and impartiality in trade relations.
Now, following Washington’s retreat from the world and newfound divisiveness, this reflects well on China. For those who must now hedge against an increasingly transactional Washington, Beijing’s stability offers a welcome relief—especially as smaller states need not chain themselves to Beijing’s anchor to benefit from the stability that it provides.
Middle powers are waking up to a future where they must pick interests rather than picking sides. While this carries risks, it can lay the groundwork for solving some of the world’s most pressing problems. By cutting through camp-based constraints, the world can better address the climate crisis, facilitate cooperation on human development, and promote a more inclusive new equilibrium.
