Interpreting China, Constructing Europe: Narrative Contestation and the EU’s Geopolitical Capacity

China’s expanding role in global governance has become a central reference point in the European Union’s (EU) geopolitical engagement. As the EU faces a more competitive and uncertain international environment, it is increasingly pressured to clarify how it interprets China’s international behaviour and what its interpretation means for the capacity of the EU to act as a geopolitical actor. This paper investigates how the EU understands China’s role in global governance and how its understanding shapes the emerging geopolitical posture of the EU. This paper demonstrates that the evolving narratives of China within the EU serve as a mechanism through which the Union adjusts its own identity in a rapidly changing strategic environment. These narratives do more than describe China; they also activate competing self-understandings within the EU regarding its role in global governance. US China rivalry further reinforces these internal tensions by encouraging divergent interpretations of China across EU institutions and member states. As a result, strategic autonomy becomes both increasingly important for safeguarding the EU’s geopolitical agency and increasingly difficult to maintain at an appropriate level, especially in the economic and technological spheres where genuine autonomy requires shared strategic perception. These dynamic forms the article’s core contribution to understanding how the EU’s interpretation of China reshapes its strategic identity in an era of great power competition.