China’s European Clearinghouse? Sino-Irish Relations in the Trumpian Era

Silk Roads and Celtic Highways

Since Xi Jinping strolled in the shadow of Hill 16, the world has changed a great deal. The image of the Chinese premier flippantly kicking an O’Neill’s Gaelic football will forever be etched in diplomatic memory as a red-letter day for Sino-Irish relations.

The visit came at a time when the Republic was still dusting itself down from the IMF Bailout years. At this point, Chinese investment was already playing a junior role in rebuilding a tattered Irish economy.

WuXi, TikTok, and SHEIN have since added themselves to the American milieu of Big Tech and pharmaceutical exports for Ireland Inc., with Dublin maintaining a 14 year running surplus with the People’s Republic.

While cumulative Chinese investment to Ireland amounts to a ballpark figure of €9.2 billion annually, it would be hard to ignore potential stormclouds gathering in Washington and Brussels.

A key tenet of Trumpism, embraced by the lion’s share of the American establishment since 2016, has been an enhanced scepticism of Beijing, whether that be in terms of economic overdependence, corporate espionage, or the potential for a military showdown over Taipei before mid-century.

Yet to clarify a definitive foreign policy line, the EU is also starting to hedge its bets through a less hawkish “de-risking” strategy, motivated in part by perceived Chinese support for Russia in Ukraine; Meloni’s government is at the fore of this strategy, having already severed ties with the Belt and Road initiative.

De-risking, rather than decoupling, is the order for the day among Brussels policymakers with an EU foreign affairs report encapsulating this changing zeitgeist in the post-COVID world.

“Since 2017, EU-China relations have been on a downward spiral. In 2019, the EU described China as ‘a cooperation partner’ and ‘negotiating partner’, as well as ‘an economic competitor’ and ‘a systemic rival’. Since then, the economic competition and systemic rivalry have intensified, while the EU and China have failed to achieve notable negotiating successes.”

While Brussels appears to be taking somewhat more unified stance on China with its derisking rhetoric opinions are divided among member states between a nominally pro-China bloc (Hungary, Greece and Spain) and hawks such as the Netherlands and Czechia with many conscious of the harassment of Lithuania following the country’s decision to recognise Taiwan in 2021.

Amid all of this, Irish economic ties with China continue to flourish even as pro-Atlanticist mouthpieces take umbrage with security concerns and the potential impact on FDI.

“We have to ensure... that if one part of the world is hit by economic storm, that other parts will keep going and be strong,” the former Minister of State for Trade Promotion, Digital and Company Regulation, Dara Calleary, answered when questioned about Ireland turning a blind eye to China.

Data concerns, the ordeal of jailed Irish businessman Richard O’Halloran, and the risk of the UCD-based Confucius Institute, all contribute toward a sceptical view of Sino-Irish relations.

None the less Ireland’s anti-colonial mindset, disenchantment from Anglo-American strategic thinking, as well as its perennial understanding that beggars can’t be choosers when it comes to small nations and international relations, has so far won out, as many argue that cutting out China from supply chains would be a fool's errand.

Among those voices is Professor Pat McCarthy, Chairman of Ireland’s Sino Institute, who argues in favour of continuing economic ties with Beijing on economic and geopolitical grounds.

“A neutral stance positions Ireland as a trustworthy and impartial actor, enabling it to engage with all sides without being seen as favoring one over the other.”

Theorising that the Republic faces a difficult geopolitical balancing act within the EU, and unofficially within the Atlantic security alliance, when it comes to China, Professor McCarthy supplements the foregoing:

“Ireland’s role as a balancing partner is not without challenges. As a member of the EU, it may need to align with collective policies and regulations, potentially limiting its autonomy in dealing with China and the U.S.”

Flipping the script via his contention that Chinese investment represents a chance to diversify away from Washington, Professor McCarthy cites the development of high-speed trains as a potential joint venture the Republic could undertake.

Decoupling, Derisking, or a Third Way

As Trump beds down in DC for a second term and the multipolar world roars further into the 21st century, one ponders how ready the Irish elite are for the so-called geopolitical shocks on the horizon. The 2008 economic crash has bequeathed a variant of tunnel vision on Dublin, whereby misfortune and recessions arise through financial mismanagement, rather than seismic political shifts.

An island behind an island at the tail end of the Eurasian peninsula, Ireland possesses many geopolitical disadvantages and advantages — its success hinges upon how its leaders play the cards nature, history, and circumstances have dealt it.

Our diaspora connection and the happenstance that American capitalism saw Ireland as a viable outlet made our recovery period substantially less painful than it would have have been otherwise. It is unlikely to happen again.

Ireland will always remain an imperfect fit for both standard EU foreign policy, as well as the wishes and wants of the DC establishment; the diplomatic standoff over our Gaza position is indicative, in terms of our relation to foreign states, of our ersatz nature.

China, even under the worst possible scenario, is not disappearing from world affairs and neither will mutual investment between the two. Instead of kowtowing to the whims and wants of foreign players within and without Europe, the navigation of Sino-Irish relations will be a defining feature of Ireland’s role in the age of multipolarity.

Irish strategic thinking, insofar as it has existed, has been on hiatus over the best part of half a century as we hitched our wagon to a multilateral order that broadly speaking has improved our lot. The memo however is slowly getting around Ireland that hard politics is returning to the detriment of small nations, and such a scenario should leave policymakers shuddering.

While Irish diplomacy has always indulged in flexibility when it comes to the world at large, it will be hard to ignore the impossibility of proceeding in this new era without a definitive China policy.

A dynamic and versatile brand of Irish trade diplomacy will have to evolve to maintain our island as the privileged economic ecosystem it is, and that requires a healthy, albeit nuanced approach to China and other Oriental partners.