Converging to Compete: EU-China Strategic Branding in connectivity
It is wonderful to be back at UACES. I first attended the conference last year, and the discussions there gave me many valuable insights for developing my research. Over the past year, I have revisited my arguments, refined my framework, and incorporated some of those insights into my analysis. Returning to UACES 2026, therefore, felt particularly meaningful: I was bringing a substantially developed version of the project back to the platform where some of its ideas were first discussed. This year, I presented my research on China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and the EU’s Global Gateway (GG), posing a seemingly simple yet intriguing question: why do two initiatives increasingly seen as geopolitical competitors sometimes sound remarkably similar?
Let me start with a simple observation. If you pick up an official document from China’s BRI and one from the EU’s Global Gateway, you may notice something surprising. Both initiatives speak about closing global infrastructure gaps, supporting sustainable development, and promoting green and digital connectivity. Yet they are often understood as competing for the same partner countries, markets, and geopolitical influence. So, are these expressions of convergence real—or only superficial?
This puzzle motivates my research: to what extent and in what ways do the BRI and Global Gateway exhibit narrative convergence, and how can we explain it? I argue that this convergence does not necessarily reflect genuine strategic alignment. Instead, it can be understood as a form of strategic branding: the deliberate use of governance narratives to establish legitimacy and manage influence in a competitive geopolitical environment.
My analysis identifies two complementary drivers. First, both initiatives operate under a common international normative environment. They face similar global challenges, expectations associated with their roles as major powers, and reputational criticisms—including concerns about dependency in partner countries. This encourages both China and the EU to draw on widely accepted international language, including the Sustainable Development Goals and the UN climate framework. The international normative environment does not determine what they do, but it shapes which narratives are considered credible and legitimate.
Second, convergence also emerges through selective mimicry and strategic interaction. The BRI and Global Gateway target many of the same regions, creating a competitive environment in which each seeks to establish an attractive and distinctive identity. China presents the BRI as pragmatic, inclusive, and supportive of the Global South, while the EU frames Global Gateway as a transparent, sustainable, and rules-based alternative. These self-images both enable and constrain their branding strategies.
This becomes particularly visible when each side selectively borrows elements associated with the other. Under criticism over debt sustainability and the environmental impact of the BRI, China increasingly incorporated language around “high-quality” development and introduced initiatives such as the Debt Sustainability Framework and the Clean Silk Road. Meanwhile, the EU adopted the BRI’s logic of a coherent, visible, state-backed connectivity offer, most clearly through the “Team Europe” approach and Global Gateway’s headline financial commitment. In other words, each actor can borrow from the other without abandoning its own identity: China can adopt elements associated with quality and sustainability, while the EU can adopt the visibility and coherence of a unified geopolitical offer.
Yet there is a gap between normative convergence and practical depth. Where shared institutional language generates the appearance of convergence, the underlying divergence in interests and governance philosophy tends to reassert itself. When cooperation requires moving from rhetoric to resource commitment, the underlying divergences in governance philosophy and strategic interest reassert themselves. Practice cooperation was, in other words, most effective precisely where it was least costly: in low-risk technical compatibility and procedural dialogue, not in the strategic integration that either side’s role conception might have implied. This also suggests that narrative convergence can coexist with strategic competition. For China and the EU, branding is not simply about communicating policies; it is part of how they compete for legitimacy, influence, and partners. At the same time, understanding the strategic logic behind each other’s narratives matters for avoiding mutual misunderstanding and identifying areas where competition might coexist with cooperation on shared challenges.
For partner countries, the stakes are even higher. Choosing between the BRI and Global Gateway is not simply a choice between two brands or sources of funding. It can also mean navigating different governance models, conditionalities, and long-term relationships with external powers. Looking beyond the language of convergence, therefore, helps us understand what lies beneath it—and why two geopolitical competitors may sometimes speak remarkably similar languages.
