When Indo-Pacific democratic governments unite in publicly criticising China’s military provocations, the European Union should join – just as countries such as Australia and Japan do in response to Russia’s ongoing aggression.
When a Chinese nuclear-powered submarine test-launched a ballistic missile from the South China Sea into the Pacific Ocean on 6 July, Beijing described the launch as routine. The response from the region was anything but routine. More than a dozen Indo-Pacific governments, including several Pacific island nations, publicly criticised the action – an unusual expression of such unity.
On the day of the incident, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte was quick to say the alliance ‘cannot be naive about China’, and ‘what happens in the Indo-Pacific is relevant to what is happening in the trans-Atlantic.’
Yet, the European Union remained silent.
By now, we know that democratic silence and good faith will get nothing in return from Moscow or Beijing. They will see this only as an incentive for more aggression and for sowing further division among democratic partners, regional alliances and cross-regional partnerships.
The EU’s high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, Kaja Kallas, has had another chance this week to show that Brussels takes its Indo-Pacific security partnerships seriously: she could have called out aggression by the China Coast Guard against the Philippine navy on Monday. But she hasn’t.
In recent years, the EU has invested much political capital in becoming a more consequential security actor in the Indo-Pacific. It has signed Security and Defence Partnerships with Japan, South Korea, India and Australia, launched political, security and defence dialogues with the Philippines and Indonesia and expanded cooperation on security and resilience with Pacific island countries.
If these statements of intent and dialogues are to carry strategic weight, they need to be seen in action. Brussels needs to make clear that it shares the concerns of its Indo-Pacific partners about China’s recent escalation in military actions.
There’s European self-interest in doing so. In a security assessment released last week, which will feed into the EU’s new security strategy, China features prominently, for three reasons: its role as a ‘key enabler’ of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, its increasingly assertive military behaviour in the South and East China Seas and across the Taiwan Strait, and the expansion of its nuclear arsenal.
Since the missile test coincided with the start of the annual Sino-Russian Joint Sea 2026 naval exercise, the incident ticked all the boxes of the EU’s China-related security concerns.
Furthermore, the EU is facing persistent criticism from partners outside Europe for focusing overwhelmingly on Ukraine while paying less attention to security challenges elsewhere. Responding to concerns raised collectively by Indo-Pacific governments would help counter that perception.
Every time Beijing crosses another threshold – whether through support for Russia’s war effort or increasingly provocative military activity – it becomes more important for partners to respond collectively. Silence normalises such behaviour and raises questions about how much political value the EU’s Indo-Pacific partnerships carry in practice.
Like Russia in Europe, China is testing both the resolve of regional governments and the speed of their responses. This is a familiar hybrid-threats tactic: step-by-step shifting of the boundaries of acceptable behaviour while normalising increasingly provocative actions. The first line of defence against such campaigns is a coordinated political response. In the Indo-Pacific, however, this is difficult. Unlike Europe, the region lacks an integrated security architecture, and many of its countries have varying degrees of economic dependence on China.
That is precisely why the regional response is so significant.
Australia’s prime minister described the missile launch as a provocation that undermined regional stability, particularly because it involved a nuclear-capable ballistic missile. Japan revealed that it had urged China not to proceed with the launch after receiving advance notification, a request Beijing ignored. The Philippines called the test ‘a reckless display of military power.’
Even more striking were the reactions from the Pacific islands. Solomon Islands’ prime minister remarked that ‘this is not something a friend does.’ Tuvalu’s prime minister, speaking on behalf of many Pacific Island countries, expressed ‘grave and serious concern and disappointment’ that China had violated the region’s Ocean of Peace Declaration, which commits Pacific states to maintaining a nuclear-free region.
Although governments differed in their wording, their message was remarkably consistent. Such unity across the Indo-Pacific deserves recognition from strategic partners, in particular from the European Union.
A statement by Kallas about the launch would go a long way towards demonstrating that the EU’s Indo-Pacific partnerships are more than words on paper. It could be as simple as saying:
The European Union shares the concerns expressed by its partners across the Indo-Pacific regarding the recent test launch of a nuclear-capable ballistic missile and other destabilising conduct. The EU supports its partners’ calls on the People’s Republic of China to uphold its responsibility to maintain regional peace, stability and security.
Such an expression of solidarity would reinforce the EU’s credibility as a security partner and make clear that coercive behaviour is not tolerated as normalised state practice – whether in Europe or the Indo-Pacific.
This is why it was positive that Kallas did issue a statement in support of the Permanent Court of Arbitration’s ruling in favour of the Philippines and against China’s expansive claims in the South China Sea on 14 July, the occasion of the 10-year anniversary.
This example of Europe’s diplomatic signalling that international rules in the Indo-Pacific matter to Europe is good, and it should be the norm, not the exception.
If the EU remains silent now, after such significant acts of escalation and aggressive behaviour, this is not just heard loudly in Canberra, Tokyo and Manila but also in Beijing.
This week, Kallas is in fact in the Indo-Pacific, at a meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. A clear and unambiguous show of support by her would back up the EU’s claim to be a consequential global security actor.
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