US-China competition directly affects all domains of international affairs, ranging from conflict resolution over global trade to maritime security, technology, or science cooperation. In all these fields, Europe is caught between two impulses, with the US as its close partner and NATO ally, but China as its most important trading partner. This event discusses where the UK and the EU are most affected by US-China competition, what they currently see as the biggest challenges, and how they can mitigate risks. Join us for a discussion that will tease out practical ideas and fresh perspectives.

Moderator:

Andrew Ehrhardt is Deputy-Director of the Centre for Grand Strategy and Research Fellow in the Department of War Studies, King’s College London. He is working on two books: A Grand Strategy of Peace: Britain and the Creation of the United Nations Organization (Manchester) and Creating the United Nations: An International History (Bloomsbury)

Discussants:

Gesine Weber is a PhD candidate at the Defence Studies Department at King’s College London. Her research interests include the EU’s Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP), EU missions and military cooperation, German and French security and defence policy, as well as questions of global order in a broader sense, especially with regard to the EU’s role in international security. Gesine contributes to the work of the Centre for Grand Strategy and is an associate researcher for the European Council on Foreign Relations.

Dr Francesca Ghiretti is an expert in economic security, China’s foreign policy, and EU-China relations. She is Research Leader at Rand Europe where she leads the work on economic security and she is the host of the podcast Geoeconomic Competition. She is also non-resident fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). Previously, Francesca worked for a London-based AI, for the Mercator Institute for China Studies (MERICS), Europe’s largest think tank on China, and for the Italian Institute for Foreign Affairs (IAI). Francesca spent a semester as a visiting fellow with the Asia Programme of the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), worked as a geopolitical analyst for a London-based hedge fund, and as an assistant to Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, former secretary general of NATO. She received her PhD from the Department of War Studies at King’s College London, where she was awarded a Leverhulme scholarship and her thesis, "The securitization of Chinese foreign direct investments in the EU" received the Outstanding Thesis Award. She's the author of "Chinese investments and the economic security turn in Europe" (Bristol University Press, January 2025). Dr. Ghiretti’s writing and commentary have appeared in the Financial Times, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and Politico.

Oliver Yule-Smith is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Grand Strategy in the Department of War Studies at King’s College London. His doctoral thesis, titled ‘The Problem of China and the British Official Mind, 1922-1984, examined the officials responsible for developing Britain’s China policy in the 20^th century. During his PhD, he participated in a doctoral placement programme which saw him embedded within the UK Government Cabinet Office’s Strategy Unit. His current research focuses include 20th-century British national strategy, methods of applied history and conceptions of international order.