China appears increasingly confident in aligning itself politically against the West. But there are ways for Australia and Europe to even the balance.

Key points

• Australia and the European Union have both been targets of Chinese economic coercion. They have a common interest, therefore, in cooperating to deter such measures and mitigate their impacts.
• As longstanding supporters of multilateralism, Australia and the European Union should cooperate to promote strengthened global rules and standards against economic coercion. Work at the World Trade Organization to build agreement on an anti-coercion approach should be a high priority for Australia–EU cooperation, as should coordination in the OECD and G7 to advance the WTO efforts.
• Australia and the European Union should use their bilateral dialogue processes to make a detailed examination of economic coercion. They should make their analyses and expertise available to other affected countries. Where appropriate, the Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs and the EU High Representative/Vice President for Foreign Affairs should make joint statements on relevant global developments related to economic coercion.
• Australia and the European Union could consider initiatives such as strengthening cooperation on resilience, cooperating within a NATO context to counter coercive measures, and deepening the dialogue between the Australian and European parliaments on economic coercion.