It seems that the Joe Biden administration thinks it can succeed where its predecessor failed. While the Trump administration sought to bully and cajole other countries to participate in its campaign to get China to genuflect to the United States, the Biden administration is appealing to their self-righteousness and self-interest to achieve that goal.

But although US Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke of working with the US' partners on "how to advance our shared economic interests" and he went to great lengths to explain to his European hosts that "the United States won't force our allies into an 'us-or-them' choice with China" — in an apparent bid to dispel concerns that the US is trying to pour its Cold War wine into a new bottle — it was impossible for him to hide the fact that presenting the US' European allies with this choice was the purpose of his visit to Brussels on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Despite offering the sop that acting together with the US, "doesn't mean countries can't work with China where possible, for example on climate change and health security", that will subject to the US' say-so. "When our allies shoulder their fair share of the burden, they'll reasonably expect to have a fair say in making decisions," Blinken said; the administration clearly reserving the right to decide what is a fair share.

Thus, although the joint statement released on Wednesday by Blinken and the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Josep Borrell, "acknowledged a shared understanding that relations with China are multifaceted, comprising elements of cooperation, competition, and systemic rivalry", cooperation remains the poor cousin to competition and rivalry.

As Blinken's overbearing opening remarks at the recent Anchorage meeting indicate, the US administration continues to turn a deaf ear to China's justified call that its core interests and sovereignty be respected. Blinken has apparently taken his Chinese counterpart Yang Jiechi's observation that the US does not have the qualification to speak to China from a position of strength as just a puff of wind passing his ear.

Most countries in the world do not recognize what the US says as representing international public opinion, Yang said, nor do they recognize that the rules it has formulated represent international rules. The EU should remain clear-headed that the US administration's declaration that the US is back is nothing but an admission that the US needs more pawns for its China containment strategy.

The EU and China concluded their years-long negotiations on a bilateral investment treaty at the end of last year. The inking of the agreement would be a positive sign to the world that it has rejected the nonsensical US proposition that another Cold War is the way to end the debilitating pandemic and avoid climate armageddon.

What the EU faces is not a crossroad, but a choice between standing on the right side of history that serves all parties' interests — including those of the US — and the wrong side of it.