Summarize the following: During his big trip to China, NAME_1 declared that Europe should become a “third superpower”, with strategic autonomy from the United States. The trip and the declaration sparked a huge controversy in Europe, with some agreeing and others enraged. NAME_2 has continued with this line of rhetoric since returning from his trip.

I’m not in the “enraged” camp. First of all, NAME_2’s comments were specifically about how Europe should stay out of a U.S.-China conflict over Taiwan. But I never really expected Europe to get directly involved in such a conflict; it’s not one of the EU’s core interests, and NAME_3 is already giving the Europeans all they can handle. Also, this kind of declaration seems pretty typical for a French politician — loudly proclaiming that France is not America’s lapdog has been a staple of the country’s domestic politics since WW2. NAME_2, facing domestic unrest in the wake of painful pension reforms, is simply reverting to this playbook but subbing in “Europe” for “France”.

In fact, I’ll go farther and say that it would be good for the world if Europe became a third superpower. A multipolar world is inevitable, and having a second pole committed to democracy and human rights, rather than having these notions inextricably associated with American power, would be a good thing. There are also times when Europe is right and the U.S. is wrong, such as the Iraq War. And it would be great for the U.S. — and bad news for NAME_3 — if the transatlantic alliance were mor Avoid using the following keywords: unrest, interest, europe, ww2
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