COLUMN: 2026, the Year the West Stopped Being Naive Toward Beijing

Introduction: The Brutal Awakening of a World That Refused to See

When Illusions Fall One After Another

There are moments in history when an accumulation of facts finally shatters the wall of diplomatic niceties. June 2026 will remain, I am increasingly convinced, one of those pivotal moments. In the space of just a few days, between June 8 and 17, the West produced a series of signals that, when put together, outline something unprecedented: a collective lucidity regarding China that hasn't been seen in decades. The Pentagon has placed 188 Chinese companies on its military blacklist. The European Union has confirmed that the Chinese army is training Russian soldiers in the use of drones to be sent to kill Ukrainians. The United Kingdom has sanctioned four Chinese entities providing military equipment to Moscow. And the Évian G7 has formally placed Chinese industrial overcapacity and Western dependence on critical minerals at the heart of its agenda, with 195 concrete projects and 64 billion euros in investments to begin unshackling ourselves.

This is no coincidence of the calendar. It is the convergence of several realizations that had been building for years but which geopolitical politeness, commercial interests, and a form of magical thinking had prevented from being translated into action. Western naivety toward Beijing had a cost. We are only just beginning to truly measure it.

A Turning Point One Would Not Have Dared Predict Twelve Months Ago

A year ago, mentioning coordinated Western sanctions against Chinese companies for complicity in the war in Ukraine would have been relegated to the category of improbable scenarios. Beijing was still largely treated as an actor to be courted, handled with care, and feared to offend. Major Western capitals were multiplying diplomatic visits to Beijing, handshakes with Xi Jinping, in the hope of preserving vital commercial relations or, worse, sincerely believing that China would play a mediator role in the Ukrainian conflict. Those illusions are dying. Not all of them, not entirely, and not without internal resistance. But the movement is underway. And its scope goes far beyond official press releases.

What June 2026 reveals is less a spectacular break than an accumulation of positions that have finally reached a critical threshold. The West is beginning to act in coherence with what it has known for a long time: China is not a neutral partner. It is a strategic actor whose interests are fundamentally opposed to those of liberal democracies.

The Pentagon Draws Up Its List: 188 Chinese Companies Under Military Surveillance

The June 8 Designation: An Act with Long-Term Consequences

On June 8, 2026, the U.S. Department of Defense published an updated list of "Chinese military companies" under Section 1260H of the National Defense Authorization Act. 188 Chinese companies are now listed, including new additions that have had the effect of a bombshell in financial and technological circles: Alibaba Group, Baidu Inc., BYD Co., NIO, Unitree Robotics and WuXi AppTec. Names that the general public associates with online commerce platforms, search engines, electric cars, or biotechnology. Seeing them listed as companies linked to the Chinese military apparatus radically changes the perception of the Chinese economy and its—very blurred—border with Beijing's military-industrial complex.

The designation, on its own, does not impose sanctions or export controls. But its effect is immediate and lasting: as of June 30, 2026, the Pentagon is prohibited from contracting directly with any of these companies. And starting June 30, 2027, this ban will extend to the entire supply chain. American companies with commercial partnerships with Alibaba, Baidu, or BYD must now assess their legal exposure. Western capital that was serenely investing in these Chinese tech giants now faces a reputational and legal risk they can no longer ignore.

Alibaba, BYD, Baidu: Symbols of a Camouflaged War Economy

Baidu responded by calling its inclusion on the list "entirely groundless," threatening to use "all available options" to challenge the designation. Alibaba denied being "a Chinese military company or part of a military-civil strategy." These denials are predictable. But they do not change the structural reality the Pentagon seeks to document: in China, the border between the civilian sector and the military apparatus is a fragile legal construction, subject to the dictates of the Communist Party. The doctrine of military-civil fusion promoted by Xi Jinping for years precisely assumes that major tech companies can be mobilized in the service of the state's strategic goals at any time.

What this list clearly says is that Washington is no longer willing to turn a blind eye to this reality. And this signal, though late given the years lost maintaining the illusion of "constructive engagement," constitutes a major symbolic break. For the first time, names familiar to global high capitalism—brands found in the stock portfolios of millions of Western savers—are officially qualified as vectors of a national security risk.

The EU Confirms the Unthinkable: Beijing Trains Russian Soldiers to Kill Ukrainians

Kaja Kallas's June 15 Declaration: A Verification That Shatters Certainties

If the American Pentagon acts with motivations that can still be read through the prism of domestic U.S. politics, the statement by Kaja Kallas, the European Union's High Representative for Foreign Affairs, on June 15, 2026, in Luxembourg, has no ambiguity whatsoever. Following a meeting of EU foreign ministers, Kallas stated bluntly: “We have now verified reports that the Chinese army has trained Russian military personnel to fight in Ukraine.” She added: “We are carefully assessing the implications.”

These two short sentences are of considerable significance. European authorities generally do not make these kinds of assertions without being certain of their solidity. The information is based on reports from European intelligence services, corroborated by documents, according to a Reuters investigation published in May 2026. These secret training sessions, focused on the use of drones, were organized under an agreement signed by Russian and Chinese officers in Beijing in July 2025. About 200 Russian military personnel were reportedly trained in China at the end of 2025, and some have since returned to fight in Ukraine.

Beijing Denies, but Denial Is No Longer Enough

Beijing denied it, of course. A spokesperson for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs called the claims "pure lies and slander," with no factual basis. This is the standard response. But this time, the denial faces a formal verification by the European Union, which cites specific intelligence, documents, and dates. On the same day, the EU added two Chinese manufacturers to its sanctions list: Shenzhen Minghuaxin, accused of providing drone components, and Xinxiang Richful Lubricant Additive Company, accused of delivering chemical additives for mechanical lubricants to the Russian army. Two Hong Kong-based companies—Glory Shipping HK and Nord Axis—were also sanctioned for facilitating the transport and export of Russian oil.

It is no coincidence that these sanctions were announced on the same day as Kallas's statement. Brussels is sending a coordinated message: China's complicity in the war in Ukraine is no longer a suspicion or an insinuation—it is a documented fact, officially recognized and sanctioned. Europe's diplomatic patience has its limits. And those limits have just been reached.

The UK Sanctions Four Chinese Companies: Atlantic Solidarity Hardens

June 16: Seventy New Sanctions, Targeting Four Chinese Entities

On June 16, 2026, while the G7 was taking place in Évian, the British government announced 70 new sanctions against entities and individuals supporting the Russian war against Ukraine. Among them, four Chinese companies were specifically targeted: Shenzhen Huaxin Antenna Technology and ComNav Technology, specialized in satellite positioning and high-precision GPS; Shtral Technology, a manufacturer of universal lathes and milling machines headquartered in Tianjin; and Brukida Limited, registered in Hong Kong, producing semiconductor chips. These four companies are accused of having provided key military equipment to Russia, thereby directly fueling its war machine against Ukraine.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, speaking from the summit in Évian, summarized the intent: “These sanctions target the ships, the money, and the actors that support Russia’s war economy and, in doing so, threaten European security.” The Chinese embassy in London immediately reacted, stating it had “presented serious representations” to the British authorities, urging London to correct what it calls an “error” and withdraw the sanctions. Beijing promised “necessary measures to protect the rights and interests of its companies.”

An Act of Survival, Not Provocation

Analysts cited by The Epoch Times called the British action an act of "survival" rather than provocation. Fang Wei, a security expert, summarized the logic: “The invasion of Russia is perceived by the UK and the EU as the greatest security threat facing Europe. They believe that Putin's ambitions will not stop at Ukraine. And yet Europe lacks the military power necessary to resist.” In this context, sanctioning Chinese companies complicit in the Russian war machine is not an ideological posture—it is a cold calculation of national security. Shen Ming-shih, another analyst, emphasized that alignment with relevant American sanctions also helps to "improve or strengthen cooperation between the United Kingdom and the United States."

This convergence between London, Brussels, and Washington on Chinese sanctions is no accident. It reflects a transatlantic coherence that is strengthening as the months go by, despite turbulence in relations with Washington under the Trump administration. On the China question, the West is speaking with an increasingly unified voice. And this unification, however incomplete it still is, is one of the standout facts of this June 2026 sequence.

The Évian G7: When Macron Forces Everyone to Name the Elephant in the Room

Macron's Strategy: Forcing the Face-to-Face with Chinese Reality

The G7 summit in Évian-les-Bains, from June 15 to 17, 2026, represented the political culmination of this sequence. Emmanuel Macron, presiding over the G7 this year in what he knows is his last summit as French president, built the agenda around one obsession: forcing his partners to look the Chinese reality in the face. The chosen phrasing—“reduce global economic imbalances”—is diplomatic. But as Alisha Chhangani, associate director at the Atlantic Council's GeoEconomics Center explained, “the focus on imbalances is the China question, the question of industrial overcapacity, and trade deficits, phrased diplomatically or kindly.” China is the elephant in the room, present in every discussion without ever being directly named in the session titles.

Macron pushed further by organizing, on June 11, an "unprecedented" video call between the G7 and China—the first time in more than twenty years that China participated in such a format with the group. Chinese Vice Premier Zhang Guoqing pleaded there for "a free and convenient business environment" and an "objective" view of each country's comparative advantages. Diplomatic translation: China refuses to be designated as the problem. But the invitation itself proves one thing: the G7 can no longer avoid putting the China question on the table.

The Communiqué: Macron Says What No One Dared to Say

In his closing press conference, Macron was unusually direct for a summit of this type. “China must address the problem of overcapacity, excessive subsidies, and the lack of domestic consumption,” he stated. He added, referring to the strategic stockpiles of raw materials accumulated by Beijing: “Facing China, which has sometimes accumulated strategic reserves — which I do not say as a reproach, it is a strategy developed over more than fifteen years — we are all faced with risks of over-dependency and therefore vulnerability in our value chains.” The concrete result of the summit on this subject: 195 cooperation projects representing 64 billion euros in investments to diversify supplies of critical minerals and reduce Western dependence on Beijing.

It's a start. Modest given the scale of the challenge—China controls 94% of the rare earth-based permanent magnets that power electric vehicles, wind turbines, military targeting systems, and data centers—but a real start, anchored in quantified commitments and identified projects. The G7 officially recognizes that dependence on Chinese critical minerals constitutes an unacceptable strategic vulnerability.

Critical Mineral Dependency: The Achilles' Heel That Beijing Patiently Built

A 94% Monopoly That Leaves the West Vulnerable

Understanding why the West took so long to realize its dependence on China requires looking at the numbers in their brutal reality. China controls 94% of the global supply of sintered permanent magnets, those essential components found in every electric vehicle, every wind turbine, every military targeting system, every industrial motor, and every data center. This is not the result of a geological accident. It is the fruit of a deliberate strategy, built over fifteen to twenty years, which Macron himself acknowledged bluntly in Évian. China has invested massively in extraction, refining, and processing of rare earths, eliminating international competition by playing on prices and accepting negative margins until reaching a dominant position.

In 2025, Beijing had imposed export restrictions on rare earth-based permanent magnets—a warning shot that had created, according to analysts, "panic in the global economy." France estimated at 60 billion euros the cost of freeing itself from this dependence for rare earth supplies alone by 2030. The G7 has just launched 195 concrete projects to try to initiate this transition. But economists are unanimous: even with the best will in the world, this diversification will take years, if not decades.

China's 15th Five-Year Plan: A Roadmap for Asserted Dominance

And meanwhile, China is accelerating. The 15th Five-Year Plan, which came into force at the start of 2026, does not seek to rebalance the Chinese economic model toward greater domestic consumption—which the West hoped for and demanded. On the contrary, it confirms and accentuates a development strategy based on asserting China's exporting, industrial, and technological power, with the goal of "winning the battle of key technologies." According to economists at BNP Paribas, this direction "must alert the rest of the world" because it "imposes strong competitive pressures and trade tensions, and creates a risk of new dependencies on China in high technology.”

This plan is no surprise to serious analysts. But it confirms the futility of the Western hope that Beijing would transform into a "responsible" economic actor in the sense the West gives that term. National security is now an explicit "key principle" of the five-year plan. This means that every Chinese economic decision is potentially a strategic decision. This reality, the West is finally beginning to integrate.

Beijing's Complicity in Putin's War: An Evidence Long Obscured

Over 90% of Sanctioned Technologies Now Pass Through China

One of the most damning facts emerging from the June 2026 debates concerns the flow of dual-use technologies to Russia. According to data compiled by European intelligence services and cited in an analysis by United24 Media, over 90% of sanctioned Western technologies that still reach Russia now transit through China—up from about 80% a year earlier. Engines, batteries, microprocessors, fiber optic cables: the components of the Shahed drones striking Ukrainian cities, hospitals, and civilian infrastructure arrive largely through Chinese supply chains. Russia could not have maintained its war effort at this level without the logistical and technological support of Beijing.

This reality was known to Western intelligence services long before June 2026. But translating it into sanctions against specific Chinese companies required a level of proof, political will, and diplomatic coherence that had been missing until now. What we are observing this month is that these three conditions are now, at least partially, met. The European sanctions of June 15, the British sanctions of June 16, the Pentagon list of June 8: all aim, directly or indirectly, at the same reality—China's contribution to the Russian war machine.

Putin and Xi: An Alliance of Convenience That Is Solidifying

Chinese complicity is not limited to technological transfers. It is also political and symbolic. In May 2026, Trump made a state visit to China, attempting to negotiate a "trade deal" with Xi Jinping. A few days later, the Pentagon published its blacklist of 188 Chinese companies—"directly complicating any diplomatic credit generated by that trip," as James Blackwood noted in The Claw Street Journal. Meanwhile, Xi Jinping received Vladimir Putin in Beijing, with the two leaders signing new "strategic cooperation" agreements. China is playing a remarkably skillful double game: negotiating with Washington with one hand, supporting Moscow with the other, accumulating strategic advantages in both directions.

This duplicity—long denied or minimized by those who preferred to believe in Beijing's "good faith"—is today documented, recognized, and named. The EU speaks of Chinese "military training" of Russian soldiers. The UK speaks of Chinese supplies of military equipment to Moscow. The United States speaks of military-civil fusion that makes major Chinese tech companies potentially at the service of the war apparatus. This consensus on diagnosis, even if it remains unevenly translated into action, constitutes in itself a historic rupture.

Decoupling: Between Strategic Ambition and Brutal Economic Reality

From Acknowledged Dependency to Overcoming It: A Path Beset with Obstacles

Acknowledging dependency is not enough to solve it. This is one of the painful paradoxes that the Évian G7 highlighted. Western leaders spent three days in Évian discussing how to reduce their vulnerability to Chinese supply chains—in raw materials, technology, and industrial components. They left with 195 projects and 64 billion euros in commitments. That is real. But it is also modest given the depth of the problem. China posted a record trade surplus of 1.2 trillion dollars in 2025, without even being present at the summit. It controls supply chains that analysts estimate would take decades of effort to even partially replace.

The term "decoupling" has been progressively replaced in the official Western vocabulary by “de-risking”—a semantic choice that says a lot about the persistent ambivalence. Total decoupling is judged impossible and probably counterproductive. De-risking, however, presupposes surgical work: identifying critical dependencies in strategic sectors and diversifying them without breaking all commercial ties. This approach is reasonable. But it requires discipline and coordination among allies that the West struggles to maintain over time.

Trade as a Weapon: Beijing Has Understood What the West Is Only Now Discovering

China has long understood what the West is only now beginning to integrate: trade, investment, and supply chains can be geopolitical weapons as formidable as missiles. The restriction of permanent magnet exports in 2025 demonstrated this with brutal clarity. Threats of Chinese countermeasures in the face of European sanctions confirm it. Beijing does not see its trade surplus as a mere economic success—it sees it as an instrument of power that creates dependencies in its trading partners and makes them vulnerable to coercion.

This understanding is now shared by a growing number of Western leaders and experts. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said it clearly in Évian: “This situation is of course not sustainable. Our strategy is very clear: de-risking.” The strategy is named. The projects are launched. The question is whether the political will will last long enough for results to materialize—before the dependency deepens even further.

Trump: The Disruptor Who, Paradoxically, Accelerates Western Lucidity

The Pentagon Blacklist and Trump's Visit to Beijing: Two Faces of an Inconsistent Policy

Understanding American policy toward China in 2026 requires accepting an apparent contradiction. In May, Donald Trump made a triumphant state visit to Beijing, negotiating purchases of American soybeans and 200 Boeing aircraft, shaking hands with Xi Jinping with the good humor of a businessman who has just closed a deal. In June, his Pentagon published the list of 188 Chinese companies linked to the military—directly complicating all the trade diplomacy that the White House had just staged in Beijing. Jake Sullivan, a former national security advisor, analyzed these contradictory signals as revealing "a structural inconsistency rather than a deliberate strategy" on the part of the Trump administration.

This inconsistency is real. Trump is a force of chaos as much as pressure. He can proclaim one day that the war in Ukraine “is having zero impact on the U.S.”—a statement that went down poorly among European partners setting up loans of 90 billion euros for Kyiv—and the next day let his Pentagon strike at Chinese tech giants. But, paradoxally, the tariff pressure and institutional disorganization that Trump generates have also had the effect of accelerating European awareness. Brussels can no longer count on Washington to manage the China question for it. It must develop its own tools, its own doctrine, its own response capacity.

Trump as an Unintentional Catalyst

This forced constraint is, in fact, beneficial in the long term for Western strategic coherence. European autonomy, long mentioned as an aspiration but rarely translated into action, becomes an existential necessity in the face of the uncertainties of American engagement. The British sanctions of June 16, the European sanctions of June 15, the 195 mineral projects of the G7: none of these results would have happened if Europe could still rest comfortably under the American umbrella. Trump, a necessary evil if ever there was one, forced Europe to grow up. It was not his intention. But it is the result.

In the same way, with the American Supreme Court having invalidated in February 2026 the customs duties imposed under the IEEPA, the Trump administration had to find other levers of pressure on China—hence the increased use of Section 1260H and military designations. American internal legal constraints have, paradoxically, pushed Washington toward pressure instruments that are more structural and more durable than simple customs tariffs. This is how history advances: often through accidents, constraints, and chain reactions rather than grand deliberate strategies.

Ukraine at the Heart of the Game: Why Kyiv's Resistance Remains the Pivot of Everything

Zelensky in Évian: The Presence That Says Everything About Western Mobilization

Among the participants invited to the Évian G7 was Volodymyr Zelensky. His presence at this summit, alongside leaders like Friedrich Merz, Keir Starmer, Emmanuel Macron, Sanae Takaichi and Trump himself, is a strong symbol. Ukraine—a country fighting for its survival for over four years—sits at the same level as the seven richest democracies in the world. Zelensky stated on June 17 that he had obtained “key commitments for further support” from the G7 leaders. The joint leaders' communiqué confirmed an increase in military support for Ukraine—air defense technologies, interceptors, military production licenses—following "recent progress on the battlefield.”

This presence of Zelensky and these commitments are not trivial in the context of the China sequence. Because the war in Ukraine is the revealer of the real threat posed by Russia and its supporters—with China in the front line. It is precisely because Ukraine resists, because Zelensky holds on, because the Ukrainian armies inflict massive losses on Putin's forces—Shen Ming-shih evaluates that Russia has probably destroyed four-fifths of its combat vehicles—that the West has time to make its strategic decisions without a knife at its throat.

Ukrainian Resistance Makes Western Lucidity Possible

It must be said clearly: if Ukraine had fallen in 2022 or 2023, there would have been no sanctions against Chinese companies in 2026. There would have been no G7 in Évian devoted to strategic dependencies. There would have been no Pentagon blacklist targeting Alibaba and BYD. Ukrainian resistance gave the West the time to understand what was at stake. It revealed, over the months and years, the complicities of Moscow—Russian, Iranian, North Korean, and now Chinese, officially confirmed. Every sanction the West imposes on a Chinese entity in June 2026 is, in a way, the fruit of Ukraine's stubborn resistance. Zelensky is a hero of our time, not in empty rhetoric, but in the most concrete sense: without him, without the Ukrainians, this realization would not have taken place.

The EU has confirmed 90 billion euros in funding for the Ukrainian defense sector. This is a considerable investment. It is also a recognition that supporting Ukraine is investing in the security of Europe itself. And, indirectly, in the West's ability to stand up to Beijing.

The Moscow-Beijing-Tehran Axis: The Total Threat the West Underestimated

A United Front Against the Western Liberal Order

What June 2026 reveals is the existence of an axis of resistance to the Western order that unites, in an informal but real way, Russia, China, and Iran. These three powers do not have the same interests, nor the same ideologies, nor the same geographical ambitions. But they share a common goal: to weaken, fragment, and disorient the liberal West. The training of Russian soldiers in China, Iranian components in drones striking Ukraine, Chinese parts in Russian missiles, "ghost fleet" ships transporting Russian oil with Asian complicity: all of this forms a coherent system.

The Évian G7 also had to deal, in parallel, with the Iranian issue—a preliminary agreement between the United States and Iran to extend a ceasefire and reopen the Strait of Hormuz. These negotiations moved oil markets by more than four percent in a single day. They illustrate how the fronts are interconnected: a concession to Iran on the Strait of Hormuz can change calculations on Russian energy and, by extension, the pressure the West can maintain on Moscow. These issues can no longer be handled in silos. The Western response must be as global and coordinated as the threat it seeks to contain.

North Korea: The Fourth Silent Partner

Alongside Russia, China, and Iran, North Korea has contributed to the Russian war machine with supplies of ammunition and, according to intelligence reports, military personnel. Kim Jong-un plays his own part in this concert of anti-democracies: he obtains advanced military technology from Moscow in exchange for his support in materials and men. This is not an ideological alliance—it's a cold and pragmatic market, like all markets of this type of regime. But its result is the same: multidimensional support for a Russia that, without it, would struggle to maintain the current pace of its operations in Ukraine.

Western lucidity in June 2026, if it is to be complete, must integrate this systemic dimension. Sanctioning Chinese companies for complicity with Russia is necessary. But it is insufficient if the West does not have a coherent vision of the global threat represented by this informal axis. The G7 has begun to outline this vision. The road is still long to translate it into a coherent operational strategy.

Artificial Intelligence: The New Battlefield of Western Sovereignty

Between Reliance on American AI and Vulnerability to Chinese Minerals

The Évian G7 also dedicated an entire session to artificial intelligence—a subject that, at first glance, seems far removed from Chinese sanctions and decoupling, but which is actually its inseparable complement. The Trump administration imposed export controls on Anthropic's frontier models—Fable 5 and Mythos 5—creating a paradoxical situation where the United States' closest allies find themselves excluded from access to the most advanced AI technologies. "The other six are quite irritated and upset that the U.S. has tried to impose this differential treatment in terms of access to Claude Fable 5 for non-U.S. users," said Andrea Renda, research director at the Centre for European Policy Studies.

This situation creates a double dependency for Europe: dependence on the United States for the AI software layer, dependence on China for the physical layer—the rare minerals that power the chips, batteries, and processing systems. As Matt Pearl from the Center for Strategic and International Studies phrased it: “If critical minerals from China suddenly became unavailable, it would be pretty catastrophic.” Europe finds itself caught between two major technological dependencies, one on its ally, the other on its main strategic competitor.

Digital Sovereignty as a Strategic Imperative

The response to this double dependency necessarily involves massive investment in European digital and technological sovereignty. This is exactly what the Évian G7 attempted to initiate, with results that are still modest but directions that are clear. The 195 cooperation projects on critical minerals also have a dimension directly linked to AI: without lithium, without nickel, without geographically diversified rare earths, digital transition and sovereignty in AI remain empty concepts. The geopolitics of minerals is inseparable from the geopolitics of artificial intelligence. And both require a reduction in dependence on China.

The CEOs of Sam Altman of OpenAI, Dario Amodei of Anthropic, and representatives from Meta were among the eleven AI leaders present at the G7 working lunch in Évian. Their presence testifies to the recognition by Western governments that this industry is now strategic in the same way as defense industries. AI is no longer a matter of technology — it is a matter of power.

Beijing's Long Memory vs. the West's Strategic Amnesia

Fifteen Years of Deliberate Chinese Strategy Facing Short Election Cycles

One of the fundamental asymmetries in the Sino-Western confrontation is that of time. China operates on time horizons of fifteen, twenty, thirty years—its five-year plans are the most visible manifestation, but the actual strategy goes far beyond. Macron acknowledged it in Évian: the strategy of building strategic stockpiles in rare earths "was developed over more than fifteen years.” The accumulation of the 94% monopoly on permanent magnets did not happen in two years—it is a patient, methodical construction, anchored in a long-term vision that authoritarian regimes have the advantage of being able to impose without having to be accountable to voters at each cycle.

The West, on the other hand, functions by short cycles. Democracies have elections every four to five years. Economic policies change. Alliances weaken. Short-term commercial interests regain the upper hand. This is precisely what China has exploited: the predictable discontinuity of Western policies, the structural inability of democracies to maintain a coherent strategy over two or three decades. The lucidity of June 2026 will be all the more precious for having been rare—and it risks remaining rare if it is not institutionalized in mechanisms that survive political shifts.

Institutionalizing Lucidity to Ensure It Survives Political Changes

This is why the 195 critical mineral cooperation projects adopted in Évian are more important than they appear. Not because 64 billion euros is enough—it isn't—but because they create formal commitments, cooperation structures, and monitoring mechanisms that are harder to undo than a simple political declaration. The interoperable cooperation on lithium and nickel, decided in Évian as a first step, is modest. But it creates an institutional precedent. And institutional precedents have a resilience that political declarations do not.

In the same way, sanctions against specific Chinese companies create legal precedents, lists that have their own dynamics, and verification processes that feed themselves. Once a government has officially documented and sanctioned a Chinese company for complicity in Putin's war, it is much harder for its successor to purely and simply lift those sanctions without justification. Institutional memory is starting to work for lucidity. And that is good news.

Conclusion: The End of the Era of Pleasantries—And the Beginning of Something Else

What June 2026 Really Changes

What can be taken from this sequence of June 2026 is less a victory than a commencement. The West has not won the confrontation with China. It has begun to accept it for what it is. The Pentagon list, the EU sanctions, the British sanctions, the Évian G7: taken separately, each of these acts is limited in scope. Together, they outline a direction. A direction that hasn't been seen so clearly in a very long time, perhaps since the end of the Cold War. The West is beginning again to conduct geopolitics with open eyes. The end of naivety is not a triumph—it is a necessary passage toward a reality that could no longer be avoided.

China remains an unavoidable commercial partner. Its total decoupling is impossible and undesirable. But strategic complacency—that tendency to turn a blind eye to Beijing's authoritarian ambitions, its complicity with Moscow, its deliberately built monopolies on strategic resources—that complacency has a cost that the West is finally beginning to calculate. And refusing to pay.

The Future Is Built in Lucidity or It Is Not Built at All

The real question posed by June 2026 is not "did we react well?"—the answer is mixed, late, still incomplete. The real question is: will this lucidity last? The short-term economic interests that fueled the naivety have not disappeared. The companies that trade with China are still there. The politicians who would prefer to go easy on Beijing to preserve exports or investments are still there. The pressure to return to "normalcy" in Sino-Western relations will be strong as soon as the spotlight moves to other crises.

But the world of June 2026 is no longer quite the same as before. Russian soldiers were trained in China to kill Ukrainians—and it is documented, recognized, sanctioned. Chinese tech giants are on the American Pentagon's blacklist. The G7 adopted 195 concrete projects to begin freeing itself from Chinese critical minerals. These acts have a resonance that goes beyond their immediate reach. They say that the West has begun to want to survive. And in the chaotic, multipolar, and dangerous world we inhabit, the will to survive is already, in itself, a form of strength.

Signed Maxime Marquette, columnist

Sources

Primary Sources

G7 Summit in Evian: Day Three — President Macron's closing press conference, official Élysée — June 17, 2026

EU says China trained Russian troops to fight in Ukraine war — Straits Times, Kaja Kallas's statement — June 16, 2026

EU Weighs Sanctions on Chinese Companies Accused of Backing Russia's War Machine — United24 Media — June 4, 2026

Secondary Sources

Fracture Lines Diverge: Pentagon's Tech Blacklist, Iran's Fragile Truce, G7 Pressure — The Claw Street Journal — June 17, 2026

'Making China the elephant in the room': The G7 confronts supply chain dependencies — Fortune — June 16, 2026

UK Joins US Bid to Weaken 'Axis of Evil' With New Sanctions on Companies Aiding Russia — The Epoch Times — June 18, 2026

China protests UK sanctions on Chinese entities over Russia — Global Banking & Finance Review — June 17, 2026

G7 leaders tackle reliance on China for critical minerals — Prothom Alo English/Reuters — June 17, 2026