{"id":405128,"date":"2025-09-07T11:38:41","date_gmt":"2025-09-07T11:38:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/405128\/"},"modified":"2025-09-07T11:38:41","modified_gmt":"2025-09-07T11:38:41","slug":"europes-century-of-humiliation-could-be-just-beginning-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/405128\/","title":{"rendered":"Europe\u2019s \u2018century of humiliation\u2019 could be just beginning \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"

The trade deal is a \u201cdirect function of Europe\u2019s weakness on the security front, that it cannot provide for its own military security and that it failed to invest, for 20 years, in its own security,\u201d said Thorsten Benner, director at the Global Public Policy Institute in Berlin, who also pointed to failures to invest in \u201ctechnological strength\u201d and to deepen the single market.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Just like the Qing leadership, Europe also scorned the warning signs over many years. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe are paying the price for the fact we ignored the wake-up call we got during the first Trump administration \u2014 and we went back to sleep. And I hope that this is not what we are doing now,\u201d Sabine Weyand, director general for trade at the European Commission, told a panel at the European Forum Alpbach on Monday. She was speaking before Trump\u2019s latest broadside on tech rules. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"After its defeat by the British in the First Opium War, the Qing dynasty signed a treaty in 1842 that condemned China to more than 100 years of foreign oppression and colonial control of trade policy. | History\/Universal Images Group via Getty Images<\/p>\n

It is clear that Trump\u2019s volatile tariff game is far from over, and the 27-nation bloc is bound to face further political affronts and unequal negotiating outcomes this fall. To prevent the humiliation from becoming entrenched, the EU faces a huge task to reduce its dependence on the U.S. \u2014 in defense, technology and finance.<\/p>\n

Stormy waters\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Treaty of Nanking, signed under duress in 1842 aboard the HMS Cornwallis<\/a>, a British warship anchored in the Yangtze River, obliged the Chinese<\/a> to cede the territory of Hong Kong to British colonizers, pay them an indemnity, and agree to a \u201cfair and reasonable\u201d tariff. British merchants were authorized to trade at five \u201ctreaty ports\u201d \u2014 with whomever they wanted.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Opium War began what China came to lament as its \u201ccentury of humiliation.\u201d The British forced the Chinese to open up to the devastating opium trade to help London claw back the yawning silver deficit with China. It\u2019s an era that still haunts the country<\/a> and drives its strategic policymaking both at home and internationally.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The trade deal is a \u201cdirect function of Europe\u2019s weakness on the security front, that it cannot provide…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":405129,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5174],"tags":[521,186,6715,31927,943,9654,1395,14787,2437,1442,6641,2575,26259,473,12495,3677,32,6643,393,54155,728,2000,8954,299,5187,474,20218,2826,3976,3749,730,8262,6084,1302,1196,1197,2122,33109,2441,22708,2132,2597,7697,2343,32776,712,811,6861,1218,479,53,1201,6862,1219,657,49,1220,771,1116],"class_list":{"0":"post-405128","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eu","8":"tag-asia","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-benjamin-haddad","11":"tag-bernd-lange","12":"tag-canada","13":"tag-capital-markets","14":"tag-china","15":"tag-cold-war","16":"tag-companies","17":"tag-competition","18":"tag-competitiveness","19":"tag-corruption","20":"tag-cptpp","21":"tag-defense","22":"tag-development","23":"tag-digital","24":"tag-donald-trump","25":"tag-energy-prices","26":"tag-england","27":"tag-enrico-letta","28":"tag-environment","29":"tag-eu","30":"tag-eu-us-trade-talks","31":"tag-europe","32":"tag-european","33":"tag-finance","34":"tag-firearms","35":"tag-golf","36":"tag-governance","37":"tag-hong-kong","38":"tag-india","39":"tag-indonesia","40":"tag-infrastructure","41":"tag-innovation","42":"tag-insurance","43":"tag-investment","44":"tag-japan","45":"tag-mario-draghi","46":"tag-markets","47":"tag-mercosur","48":"tag-mexico","49":"tag-military","50":"tag-ports","51":"tag-research","52":"tag-sabine-weyand","53":"tag-scotland","54":"tag-security","55":"tag-single-market","56":"tag-steel","57":"tag-tariffs","58":"tag-technology","59":"tag-trade","60":"tag-trade-agreements","61":"tag-trade-war","62":"tag-ukraine","63":"tag-united-states","64":"tag-ursula-von-der-leyen","65":"tag-war","66":"tag-weapons"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405128","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=405128"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405128\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/405129"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=405128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=405128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=405128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}