In 2024, Paul van Hooft and Tim Sweijs argued in a published analysis that a U.S.–Chinese war over Taiwan would inevitably draw in and weaken Europe, even if European states attempted to remain militarily uninvolved. Their paper, “Two-Theater Tragedy: A Reluctant Europe Cannot Easily Escape a Sino-American War Over Taiwan,” contended that economic interdependence, global supply chain disruptions, and the strategic imperative of maintaining transatlantic unity would compel European engagement, regardless of official neutrality.
Two years later, amid renewed Chinese military exercises around Taiwan and heightened U.S. Naval deployments in the Indo-Pacific, van Hooft revisited the thesis in an interview with War on the Rocks. He emphasized that Europe’s economic exposure to Asian markets has not diminished since 2024, noting that the European Union’s trade with China remains its largest bilateral trading relationship, valued at over €800 billion annually as of 2023. He also pointed to the continued reliance of European semiconductor manufacturers on Taiwanese foundries, particularly TSMC, which produces over 90% of the world’s most advanced chips.
Van Hooft reiterated that any significant disruption to maritime trade in the South China Sea or East China Sea would directly impact European energy and goods imports, given that approximately 30% of global maritime trade passes through these waters. He cited data from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development showing that a prolonged blockade or conflict in the region could reduce global trade volumes by up to 15%, with Europe disproportionately affected due to its export-dependent economies.
He further noted that NATO’s strategic focus has increasingly included Indo-Pacific security, referencing the alliance’s 2022 Strategic Declaration, which identified China’s growing influence and assertive policies as a challenge to Euro-Atlantic security. While the declaration does not mandate military action, van Hooft argued it creates political pressure for European capitals to align with U.S. Positions, particularly as Washington links European defense burden-sharing to Indo-Pacific cooperation.
When asked whether Europe could truly “sit out” such a conflict, van Hooft pointed to the continent’s limited strategic autonomy in critical technologies and energy. He observed that despite efforts to diversify away from Russian fossil fuels, Europe remains vulnerable to global energy price shocks, and a Taiwan conflict could trigger simultaneous disruptions in LNG markets and semiconductor supply chains — both of which would reverberate through European industry and inflation rates.
He declined to speculate on the likelihood of conflict or the specific actions European governments might take, stating only that the structural dependencies outlined in the original analysis remain intact. As of early 2025, no major European state has formally revised its defense or foreign policy to exclude economic or diplomatic engagement in the event of a Taiwan contingency, and institutional silence on contingency planning persists across key capitals.
