China Shock 2.0: This Time It's Europe, with Adam Tooze
About this episode
The episode discusses the recent EU debate on China policy and the economic implications of trade deficits between Europe and China.
Last week in Brussels, EU leaders held their first sustained debate on China policy in three years, and were so wary of Beijing’s reaction they wouldn’t print the word “China” on the agenda. The trigger: a goods-trade deficit closing in on 360 billion euros, and, for the first time ever, all 27 member states in the red. Recorded at Summer Davos in Dalian, I sat down with economic historian Adam Tooze to ask why the panic, and why now. Polanyi, the Plaza Accord, “glut shaming,” a $1.2 trillion surplus, and what Europe and China each most need to understand about the other. 04:26 – Why the alarm now? Imbalances are decades old, so what changed—and the shift from China slotting into Western supply chains to climbing the value chain 07:04 – Karl Polanyi, the “double movement,” and how the European working-class question becomes the politics of right-wing populism 11:21 – Autos as the core of the fight—12 million jobs—and why the Ukraine alignment gives the whole thing its moral charge for von der Leyen 14:14 – “Glut shaming”: the accusation of illegitimacy baked into the Western framing, and how it lands on a Chinese ear 18:16 – Wěiqu (委屈)—the swallowed sense of being wronged and why…
More episodes of Sinica Podcast
- The Platform State: Angela Zhang and Alex Yang on How China Really Governs Its Economy
- Agile Governance: Tsinghua's Xue Lan on How China Regulates What It Can't Fully Predict
- "But China!": Robert Wright on the AI Race and Our Coming Cosmic Reckoning
Explore listener stats, chart rankings, contacts and more on the Sinica Podcast podcast page.