SARAH-JANEFIELDContinental rift
As Brexit approaches, European gazes are
fixed on the UK – but in truth the split that
really defines the EU is a cultural and economic
divide between France and Germany
BY ANNE MCELVOYhink of the modern rela-
tionship between France
and Germany, and pictures
of amit y spring to mind.
One memorable image is that of France’s
foreign minister, Robert Schuman,
shaking the hand of West Germany’s
first post-war leader, Konrad Adenauer,
following the signing of the Treaty of
Paris in 1951, agreeing co-operation on
coal and steel production to forfend any
further conflict between the nations.
Events commemorating the world
wars have subsequently provided the
backdrop for efforts to forge a closer
relationship. On 25 September 1984,for example, West German chancellor
Helmut Kohl and French president
François Mitterrand held hands in
the Douaumont cemetery at Verdun
to mark the 70th anniversary of the
outbreak of the First World War. And
last November, Angela Merkel and
Emmanuel Macron made a show of
solidarity while visiting Compiègne
to mark a century since the armistice
ending that conflict was signed.
Today’s major continental powers are
not, thankfully, anywhere near the
brink of war. But they are more distinct
in their approaches to the institutional
Europe than these shows of unity
suggest. This distinctiveness in their
outlooks on political economy has beenT
Phil Tinline is a
BBC documentary-
maker. His BBC
Radio 4 documentary
Land Power v Sea Power
is available on
BBC Soundsin World Politics that, after the Second
World War was over, the chief challenge
in the region would not come from
Japan, whose imperial army was then
tyrannising much of east Asia. Spykman
was more concerned about one of the
countries then suffering under Japanese
occupation. “A modern, vitalised, and
militarised China of 450 million people,”
he wrote, “is going to be a threat not only
to Japan, but also to the position of the
Western Powers in the Asiatic Mediterra-
nean.” In a later work, Spykman went
on to argue that island bases should be
sufficient to stop China from dominat-
ing the far east – bases such as those in
Japan, Guam, the Philippines and, until
America formally withdrew in 1979, that
“unsinkable aircraft carrier”, Taiwan.
You might think that these old
geopolitical texts would be dismissed in
China as clapped-out imperialism. But
now that it is becoming a great power
itself, China’s policy experts have been
studying them closely – particularly
Mahan, the prophet of sea power who
warned of China’s rise 129 years ago.
The question now is how they put their
studies into action.
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