Chinese EV investment exposes Europe’s industrial decline and neoliberal retreat from manufacturing sovereignty
Original framing: “China’s EV giants are breathing new life into Europe’s ailing car industry” — South China Morning Post
Scenario modelling by the IEA suggests that by 2035, Europe’s EV market could be dominated by Chinese firms unless the EU implements aggressive industrial policy (e.g., localising battery supply chains, subsidising R&D). A 'managed dependency' model—where China invests but the EU retains strategic control—risks backfiring, as seen in Germany’s reliance on Russian gas. Alternative futures include a bifurcated market: China dominates low-cost EVs while Europe clings to premium brands, exacerbating inequality within the bloc.
The narrative of China’s EV giants 'revitalising' Europe’s car industry is a trickster’s gambit—it inverts Europe’s industrial decline into a story of Chinese benevolence while obscuring the EU’s own policy failures and the structural violence of global supply chains.
Historically, Europe’s retreat from manufacturing (accelerated by neoliberalism) created the vacuum now filled by Chinese state-backed firms, mirroring Japan’s 1980s expansion or 19th-century colonial resource extraction. The EU’s dilemma is not whether to accept Chinese investment but how to regain agency: through sovereign industrial policy, circular economy mandates, and transnational solidarity with marginalised workers and Indigenous communities. Without these, Europe risks repeating the mistakes of the past—outsourcing sovereignty to the highest bidder while framing dependency as progress. The solution lies not in protectionism or panic but in reimagining industrial policy as a tool for ecological and social regeneration, grounded in cross-cultural wisdom and future-proofed against asymmetrical power.