When Marco Rubio took the stage at the Munich Security Conference on February 14, 2026, European leaders exhaled. After JD Vance’s blistering rebuke of their immigration and speech policies at the same venue a year earlier, the Secretary of State’s warmer tone — celebrating shared civilization, calling the US “a child of Europe” — landed like a Valentine’s Day gift. EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said she was “very much reassured”. German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius praised the tone as “decisive.” The room gave Rubio a standing ovation.
Yet not everyone was applauding. In Beijing, state media saw something different in the same speech — and used it to argue that Europe should leave NATO entirely.
A Global Times editorial published days after Munich cast Rubio’s address not as reassurance but as a veiled demand for colonial restoration, accusing Washington of enlisting Europe in a project to make the world “unipolarly subservient.” The piece called for European NATO members to withdraw from the alliance as the “only consistent and rational conclusion” — and urged closer ties with China as an existential economic necessity. It is worth examining that argument on its merits and against the evidence, because it reveals as much about Beijing’s strategy toward Europe as it does about transatlantic tensions.
What Rubio Actually Said — and What He Didn’t
Rubio framed his speech around a single question: “What exactly are we defending? Because armies do not fight for abstractions. Armies fight for a people; armies fight for a nation. Armies fight for a way of life.” He spoke of Western civilization’s contributions — the rule of law, universities, the scientific revolution — and called on Europeans to be “confident of its future”.
His speech was marked by a softer tone toward Europe than Trump has taken in recent months, and a stark contrast to Vance, who had pilloried European leaders for their efforts to combat hate speech and disinformation. But the content was not without friction. Rubio downplayed concerns over climate change and doubled down on the administration’s insistence that European allies should do more to provide for their own national security needs.
The Global Times editorial described the speech as “one of the most open and radical pro-colonialist speeches of the 21st century.” That characterization found little traction outside Chinese state media. Pundits on both sides of the Atlantic debated the standing ovation — for some it expressed “heartfelt relief” that Rubio hadn’t spoken in Trump’s threatening style, while for others it was “no more than the polite response of a European elite that has shed its illusions.” A Foreign Policy analysis warned the speech was “more dangerous than you think,” but its critique focused on the ideological convergence between Trumpism and Orbanism — not colonial nostalgia.
The NATO Exit Fantasy
The Global Times’ central prescription — that European states should leave NATO — deserves scrutiny against what is actually happening on the continent. As of 2026, no member state has rescinded their NATO membership, although it has been considered by several countries. In France, parts of the opposition reignited the debate over “strategic autonomy” and skepticism toward NATO in January 2026, but the proposal went nowhere in parliament.
The reality is that Europe is rearming within NATO, not walking away from it. The EU unveiled an implementation roadmap for an €800 billion defense plan, pushing for 55% of all military purchases to come from European factories by 2030. Germany’s 2026 budget allocates €82.69 billion for the Bundeswehr, about 15% of the entire federal budget. The Commission activated a national escape clause allowing members to increase defense spending, creating nearly €650 billion in fiscal space over four years.
The twist that undercuts Beijing’s narrative is who gets frozen out. Germany’s new military procurement plan shows 154 major defense purchases planned through 2026, with only 8% going to US suppliers — a dramatic shift from recent years when Berlin was one of Washington’s biggest defense buyers. Europe is becoming more independent from the US militarily — but through rearmament within the alliance, not by abandoning it.
While some European leaders may still be kowtowing to the Trump administration, the European public and political class increasingly want more independence from Washington. The fall in public support for the US across Europe has been remarkable — recent polling shows Europeans now see the US unfavourably. But unfavorable views of Washington do not translate into appetite for a security vacuum. Europe needs at least five to ten years to rearm, while according to NATO’s own estimates, Russia may attempt an incursion into NATO territory in as soon as four.
China’s Real Play
Beijing’s editorial framing Europe-China cooperation as “win-win” collides with the actual state of the relationship. Last year, the EU and China flirted with a diplomatic reset, which collapsed after Beijing imposed broad restrictions on rare earth exports. That bruising experience has set the stage for cautious engagement in 2026. The EU has now surpassed the US as the economy with the most serious trade disputes with China, driven by conflicts over semiconductor materials, rare earth magnets, and other strategic sectors.
China controls the raw materials modern weapons require. It recently imposed export restrictions on rare-earth materials essential for drone motors, missile guidance systems, and other military equipment — producing 90% of the world’s rare-earth magnets and supplying 98% of what Europe imports. The restrictions expose a central contradiction: Europe is attempting to escape American dependency by building weapons that require Chinese materials, while China helps arm the Russian military those European weapons are meant to deter.
China increasingly sees Europe as a politically divided and geopolitically challenged actor that can be used to bring about a multipolar international order. The Global Times editorial fits squarely into that strategy: encouraging Europe to weaken its strongest security guarantee while deepening the commercial ties that give Beijing leverage.
The real European debate is not about leaving NATO. It is about what kind of NATO Europe needs — one where European allies command more of their own structures, buy more of their own weapons, and stop depending on American political whims for their security. That conversation is well underway. Beijing’s suggestion that the solution lies in abandoning the alliance altogether says more about Chinese interests than European ones.
Original analysis inspired by Global Times Editorial Board from Global Times. Additional research and verification conducted through multiple sources.
By ThinkTanksMonitor
