One of the themes I have explored in the essays written for this newspaper is the impact on Pakistan of the massive changes occurring in the global economy and the structure of world politics. In the article today, I will examine how China is cultivating a closer relationship with the countries of the European Union and how that could affect the geopolitical space of which Pakistan is one part. China is moving in this direction because of the unrelenting hostility shown to it by Donald Trump's America.

Given the approach Trump has chosen to follow, Xi Jinping's China is looking for other partners in the international economy and politics. China, a rapidly rising global economic power, owes much of its rise to exporting what were once cheaply produced products to the markets in the West — the United States and Europe. However, with the rise in domestic wages, China has moved towards the manufacture of advanced and technologically sophisticated items for exports to the United States and Europe. But Trump's America is using high tariffs as the most important policy instrument for regulating foreign trade.

One consequence of this policy is that China is finding it difficult to export its manufactures to the United States, once its largest foreign market. It is looking to find other destinations for its products. This search has taken it to Western Europe. Both the European Union and individual leaders of EU member countries are responding enthusiastically to the Chinese reach. They, too, are trying to find a way of working with the Trumpian world.

One of the leaders who has responded very........

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