EU–Asia-Pacific Relations — September 13, 2026

Policy briefing on European Union relations with Asia-Pacific, compiled September 13, 2026 from open-source reporting.

Brussels' Asia Policy Inside a Contested Foreign-Policy Machine

The EU's autumn diplomatic season opened with the bloc's own foreign-policy machinery under visible strain, which conditions how much bandwidth Brussels can devote to the Indo-Pacific. High Representative Kaja Kallas spent the first half of September defending the European External Action Service against a Franco-German push to place her office more tightly under Commission President Ursula von der Leyen's supervision (Euronews, 31 August; Politico Europe, 2 September, "Inside Kallas' fightback against plans to tear up the EU's diplomatic service"). On 7 September she abandoned a newly announced high-level defence advisory group after member-state pushback, and by 9 September Euronews was running the headline "Kaja Kallas under fire from EU capitals when she needs them most." The practical consequence for Asia policy is that the High Representative's China and Indo-Pacific lines now carry less institutional weight than the Commission's trade machinery.

Substantively, the leadership's framing has hardened rather than softened. Von der Leyen and Kallas jointly called on 3 September for Europe to adapt to what they described as a chaotic and coercive world order — continuity with Kallas's May 2026 Lennart Meri Conference remarks, where she characterised Europe's structural dependency on China across batteries, chemicals, shipbuilding and raw materials as a "cancer" requiring decisive treatment (Brussels Signal), and with her earlier call for a "dose of realism" in relations with Beijing reported by the South China Morning Post. The formal EEAS channel to Beijing — the Kallas–Wang Yi exchange under the EU-China Strategic Dialogue — remains open, but it is no longer where the leverage sits.

The period's set-piece moment was still pending at the time of writing: von der Leyen's State of the Union address, trailed by the Brussels Times on 12 September and previewed by the European Policy Centre on 7 September under the question of whether the Commission can move "from ambition to action." EUobserver's 10 September critique of the AI data-centre agenda expected to feature in that speech signals that the technology-sovereignty dimension of the China relationship will be prominent.

Bilaterally, the calendar is filling out on the Indian and Korean files. External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar discussed the "enormous economic potential" of the forthcoming FTA with EU interlocutors on 28 August, and Indian reporting on 29 August indicated Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected in Brussels in December 2026 for an EU–India summit. Belgium's prime minister travelled to New Delhi at the end of August as part of the same broader European courtship of India. On the Korean peninsula, a senior EU official told Yonhap in a 9 September interview that the DPRK–Russia relationship has become "structural" and is likely to persist beyond the end of the war in Ukraine — an assessment that pushes Pyongyang from a non-proliferation file into a European security file.

Trade and Investment: India Moves to the Council, Beijing Gets an October Ultimatum

The single most consequential development of the period came on 11 September 2026, when the European Commission transmitted to the Council its proposals for the signature and conclusion of the EU–India Free Trade Agreement (press release IP/26/1842), following the political conclusion of negotiations announced in January 2026 (IP/26/184). Trade and Economic Security Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič presented the package as joining markets of roughly two billion people and about a quarter of global GDP. On substance, the agreement will eliminate or reduce tariffs on 96% of EU goods exports to India, while Indian exporters gain duty-free access to more than 99% of EU tariff lines, with apparel, chemicals and footwear among the principal beneficiaries on the Indian side.

Procedurally, the file now sits with the Council, which must authorise signature before the European Parliament's consent is required for conclusion and entry into force. The Commission is running the file under the accelerated ratification approach Šefčovič introduced earlier in 2026 to compress the gap between political conclusion and legal effect — an explicit response to the argument that the EU negotiates well and ratifies badly. The realistic political test will be Parliament, where sustainability chapters and Indian market-access sensitivities are the likely friction points.

On China, the posture is now openly coercive-defensive. EU trade enforcers travelled to Beijing at the start of September demanding that China fix what the South China Morning Post (2 September) reported the Commission calling "untenable" imbalances, with Šefčovič warning of "harsher measures" if there is no movement by October. Reuters reported on 8 September that the EU wants initial Chinese action on the trade gap by early October; Politico Europe had reported on 31 August that Brussels was seeking to convince China to curb its own exports to the bloc, and Euractiv framed the demand on 9 September as "buy more from the EU or face a trade war." Bloomberg on 10 September quantified the pressure as a roughly $150 billion China shock unnerving European companies. Beijing's public answer came via a Global Times editorial on 9 September inviting the EU to "try" a trade war, alongside a Chinese warning on 3 September against market-closure threats. Šefčovič, meanwhile, was reported on 8 September to be preparing to ask European CEOs directly how much decoupling from China they can actually afford — an admission that the Commission's leverage depends on industry's tolerance for pain.

The instrument pipeline has thickened accordingly. The Commission opened a dumping investigation into plastics imports from China and other origins on 4 September; Reuters reported on 10 September that France, Italy and Germany are pressing for EU-wide safeguards on chemicals and plastics; steel mesh imports from Türkiye and China were placed under registration on 11 September; and on 31 August the Commission set out the evidence importers must supply to prove the country of "melt and pour" for steel products. Trade defence is not China-exclusive — on 10 August the Commission imposed anti-dumping duties on terephthalic acid from Korea and Mexico, a reminder to Seoul that the instrument cuts across partners. In the automotive file, the 2024 countervailing architecture of 17.4%–37.6% duties on China-made EVs remains in force with negotiated minimum-price carve-outs (Volkswagen's Cupra Tavascan was exempted in February 2026 under a price-and-quota undertaking), while an Italian industry association called on 9 September for tariffs of up to 80% on Chinese cars and parts.

Defensive screening is being built out in parallel. On 9 September the Commission adopted a proposal for simpler and more strategic public procurement rules (IP/26/1596), widely read — including by The Guardian on 10 September — as a "buy European" instrument aimed at Chinese bidders; the European Parliament adopted a report on 8 September tightening conditions on inbound investment; and on 21 August the Commission awarded a contract for a "China Observatory" to monitor Chinese economic policy and maintain a dedicated foreign direct investment database.

Technology and Digital: AI Act Enforcement Meets Taiwanese Chip Diplomacy

The EU entered the enforcement phase of the AI Act during the reporting window, with reporting on 28 August describing the world's largest technology companies already altering product and disclosure behaviour in response. The regulatory confidence, however, sits uneasily alongside supply-chain reality: an IEEE Spectrum analysis on 31 August argued that Europe's AI ambitions collide with a fragile chip supply chain, and EUobserver on 10 September attacked the AI data-centre expansion expected to anchor von der Leyen's State of the Union as energy- and capital-unrealistic. Bruegel's 10 September paper on China's artificial intelligence goals framed the strategic choice for Europe as whether to compete, regulate, or quietly depend.

That dependency question has made Taiwan unusually central to EU technology policy this month. On 1 September President Lai Ching-te publicly urged European partners to conclude a bilateral investment agreement and a double-taxation agreement with Taipei, citing a surge of roughly 650% in Taiwanese investment into Europe. Reuters reported on 7 September that Taiwan is deliberately converting chip dominance into diplomatic leverage as Washington and Brussels press for AI-related investment, and on 10 September Taiwan showcased its capabilities at a semiconductor forum in Europe. Taiwanese policy institutes published an explicit blueprint on 10 September for "forging a robust Taiwan–Europe semiconductor alliance," while The Diplomat's 25 August assessment described Taiwan as a growing economic partner for the EU in troubled times. The gap between Taipei's ask (investment and tax treaties) and Brussels' willingness to deliver anything with treaty status remains the core unresolved issue.

Elsewhere in the digital domain the EU has been quietly extending regulatory connectivity rather than signing headline deals. Singapore and the EU concluded a pact on 25 August to improve connectivity between their digital markets, building on the EU–Singapore digital trade architecture and consolidating Singapore's role as the EU's digital gateway to Southeast Asia. On 10 September The Korea Times reported Korea and the EU seeking stronger supply-chain ties as industrial rules — carbon border measures, battery and critical raw materials requirements — continue to evolve, which is where most practical EU–Korea technology friction now lives.

Two cautions for analysts. First, no new data-adequacy decision, undersea-cable initiative or 5G vendor action involving an Asia-Pacific partner surfaced in this window; the EU's digital leverage in the region currently runs through market access, standards and enforcement rather than new instruments. Second, China's own AI standards push — including mandatory pre-development ethics review reported on 27 August — creates a second regulatory pole that Asian third countries will have to arbitrate between, a competition in which the EU's first-mover advantage on rules is no longer assured.

Security and Defence: A Taiwan Visit, Dual-Use Leakage and the Japan Partnership

The sharpest political-security episode of the period was Taiwanese Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim's rare European appearance. Taiwan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed on 11 September that Hsiao had travelled to Italy, accompanied by Foreign Minister Lin Chia-lung, to attend the Second Ventotene European Conference for Freedom and Democracy. Beijing lodged formal representations with both Rome and the EU, with Chinese state media calling the visit "despicable"; Taiwan's MOFA responded the same day that China has no right to interfere in the trip. The follow-through matters more than the protest: on 13 September European Parliament Vice President Pina Picierno described Hsiao as a "role model" and said she would begin planning a visit to Taipei, having accepted Hsiao's invitation — a parliamentary-level escalation Beijing has historically found harder to deter than executive contacts.

On the Russia–China dual-use file, evidence accumulated faster than the EU's ability to act on it. Kallas complained publicly on 2 September that there are "too many Western and Asian components in Russia's arsenal"; Politico Europe reported on 4 September on a Chinese "secret lifeline" to a Russian strike-drone manufacturer, and on 7 September further reporting alleged that a Chinese state-owned firm had covertly shipped 46 tonnes of carbon-fibre material for Russian strike drones. Kallas responded on 10 September by proposing that sanctions-evasion cases be assigned to the European Public Prosecutor's Office. The constraint is internal: Slovakia's rejection on 3 September of a plan to lock in Russia sanctions for twelve months, and the wider Slovak veto dynamic analysed by RFE/RL on 8 September, make new listings of third-country enablers procedurally fragile. Beijing's own countermeasures against EU firms, by contrast, were assessed by Politico on 2 September as largely symbolic — for now.

The institutional backbone of EU security cooperation in Asia remains the EU–Japan Security and Defence Partnership agreed in November 2024 and elaborated at the 23 July 2025 Tokyo summit, which committed both sides to cooperation in cyber, maritime and space security, including joint work on a satellite constellation that would reduce reliance on US-based platforms, and launched the EU–Japan Defence Industry Dialogue on dual-use and advanced technologies. Japan's Ministry of Defense published a further EU–Japan defence document dated 14 May 2026. With Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi's government accelerating defence spending and liberalising export controls following the February 2026 election, Tokyo is now the most capable and most willing European defence-industrial partner in the region — and the one whose pace Brussels is least equipped to match.

In maritime Southeast Asia, the operative European actors are member states rather than the Union. The Philippine News Agency reported on 10 September that a Philippines–France pact will widen Manila's defence reach in the Indo-Pacific, and on 8 September Philippine Foreign Secretary Maria Theresa Lazaro dismissed a Chinese state-media claim over the Batanes Islands as a "ploy" timed against Philippines–Japan maritime delimitation talks. No new EU-flagged naval deployment to the Indo-Pacific was announced in this window; EU maritime enforcement energy went instead into the Mediterranean, where EU forces boarded a suspected Russian shadow-fleet tanker on 31 August. That asymmetry — rhetorical presence in the South China Sea, operational presence at home — remains the central credibility problem in the EU's Indo-Pacific security posture.

Connectivity, Energy and Raw Materials: Global Gateway Finds a Philippine Anchor

Global Gateway's most concrete Asia-Pacific move of the period was in Manila. On 10 September 2026 the European Union and Spain formally joined the Luzon Economic Corridor, expanding the initiative from its original three partners to thirteen, according to the Philippine Department of Finance and reporting by BusinessWorld, the Philippine News Agency, the Manila Bulletin and the Inquirer. The accession coincided with the inaugural Luzon Economic Corridor Investment Forum in Manila, hosted alongside the United States, Japan and the Philippines, at which President Ferdinand Marcos Jr appealed directly to foreign investors and power, transport and digital infrastructure projects were pitched to the market.

That move should be read against the architecture rather than the headline. Global Gateway aims to mobilise up to €300 billion between 2021 and 2027 through a Team Europe approach combining EU institutions, member states and private capital, with more than 250 projects launched worldwide. In Asia specifically, the EU Delegation in India launched a regional energy connectivity project for South Asia on 10 July 2026, recirculated by the EEAS on 8 September, while the Pacific tranche rests on the roughly €300 million package announced at the EU–Pacific Business Forum in Fiji. The pattern is one of the EU buying relevance by joining corridors designed by others — cost-effective, but leaving European presence contingent on American and Japanese geometry.

On raw materials the picture is less comfortable. Reuters reported exclusively on 8 September that several companies selected for the EU's list of strategic critical-minerals projects are flagging liquidity concerns, which undercuts the Critical Raw Materials Act's central premise that designation unlocks finance. At the multilateral level, China blocked consensus language on trade and minerals at the G20 finance track on 2 September, with G20 finance chiefs other than Beijing backing action on distorted trade. Domestically the Commission is trying to substitute capital for diplomacy: the Battery Booster Facility is offering up to €1.5 billion in interest-free loans for battery cell manufacturing across the EEA with applications closing on 30 September 2026, and guidance to prepare industry for the Digital Battery Passport was published on 21 August.

The green-transition interface with Asia therefore runs mostly through regulatory extraterritoriality rather than partnership. Korea and the EU are negotiating supply-chain alignment precisely because CBAM, battery rules and raw-materials requirements determine Korean access (The Korea Times, 10 September), and European steel-sector panels concluded on 11 September that the combined effect of CBAM and tariff-rate quotas remains difficult to assess, with downstream support seen as critical. For Asian exporters the practical message of this period is that EU decarbonisation instruments now function as market-access conditions, and that Brussels has more appetite to enforce them than to compensate for them.

Southeast Asia and Oceania: Business Pressure for a Region-to-Region Pact

European business took the unusual step this month of publicly getting ahead of European governments on ASEAN. Survey findings published between 8 and 11 September showed European firms pressing for a region-to-region ASEAN–EU free trade agreement despite steady progress on bilateral deals, with the Jakarta Globe reporting on 11 September that "European firms crave an ASEAN–EU trade pact to keep up with rivals." Vietnam emerged as the top expansion destination, with 64% of European firms planning to expand there; Singapore remained the hub of choice for regional headquarters; and the Philippines lagged notably, with Philippine outlets on 8–9 September reporting that few EU firms currently plan to enter the market. The same surveys recorded US tariff policy as the principal drag on European business confidence in the region — a reminder that EU–ASEAN economics is now partly a function of Washington's trade war.

Bilateral tracks continue to move faster than the regional one. Indonesian officials said on 4 September that the Indonesia–EU Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (IEU-CEPA) will materially strengthen market access for Indonesian goods, with wider EU access for palm oil reported on 8 September — politically significant given the deforestation-regulation friction that has dogged the relationship. The Philippines signalled on 7 September that it is seeking to finalise free trade agreements with both the EU and Canada, which would put Manila's stalled EU negotiation back on the agenda. Taken together, the EU is assembling ASEAN coverage deal by deal rather than bloc to bloc, which is what European business is objecting to on cost and complexity grounds.

Vietnam illustrates how much of the relationship is carried by member states. General Secretary To Lam's visit to France produced a joint statement issued on 11–12 September on implementing the Vietnam–France Comprehensive Strategic Partnership framework, with the Vietnamese leadership explicitly calling for a shift from trade to joint production, and Vietnamese business framing France as a springboard into the wider EU market. That bilateral intensity, layered on top of the existing EU–Vietnam FTA, gives Paris a position in Hanoi that Brussels does not independently hold.

Oceania was comparatively quiet in EU terms. Australian strategic energy in the period went into building out a Pacific alliance system to constrain Chinese influence (The Economist, 27 August) and into reaffirming AUKUS as a China deterrent (Australian Financial Review, 2 September), while New Zealand announced new diplomatic appointments on 7 September. No movement surfaced on the EU–Australia trade relationship during the window. The strategic implication is that the EU's Pacific offer remains development- and climate-financed rather than security-linked, which limits its purchase at exactly the moment when Pacific island states are being courted with security-inclusive packages by Canberra, Washington and Beijing.

Sources

• Commission presents landmark India trade deal to Council for signature (11 September 2026)
• EU and India conclude landmark Free Trade Agreement
• Commission proposes simpler and more strategic Public Procurement rules (9 September 2026)
• MEMO: EU-India Free Trade Agreement – Chapter-by-Chapter Summary
• The EU-India trade agreement – European Commission
• Commission sets type of evidence to prove country of 'melt and pour' of steel products (31 August 2026)
• Commission acts against dumped imports of terephthalic acid (10 August 2026)
• Award notice: China Observatory – monitoring of China's economic policy and EU-China economic relations (21 August 2026)
• Commission seeks projects to fund under Battery Booster Facility (€1.5bn, deadline 30 September 2026)
• Guidance to support preparations for the Digital Batteries Passport (21 August 2026)
• Global Gateway – European Commission, International Partnerships
• Global Gateway: The European Union to invest close to €300 million in the Pacific – EEAS
• EU-Japan Security and Defence Partnership – EEAS
• China: High Representative/Vice-President Kaja Kallas met with Foreign Minister Wang Yi – EEAS
• EU-Japan summit, 23 July 2025 – Council of the EU
• Japan Ministry of Defense – Japan-EU defence cooperation document, 14 May 2026
• Building without blocs: EU-Japan relations after the July Summit – European Policy Centre
• EU foreign policy chief calls for 'dose of realism' in China relations – South China Morning Post
• EU top diplomat Kaja Kallas calls China a 'cancer' – Brussels Signal
• Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim in Italy for democracy forum – Focus Taiwan, 11 September 2026
• Beijing has no right to interfere in vice president's visit to Italy: MOFA – Focus Taiwan, 11 September 2026
• European Parliament vice president praises Hsiao as 'role model' for women – Focus Taiwan, 13 September 2026
• VP Hsiao attends Second Ventotene European Conference for Freedom and Democracy – Taipei Times, 12 September 2026
• Taiwan has right to make friends: VP – Taipei Times, 13 September 2026
• EU-India: the Commission sends the proposal for the signing of the FTA to the Council – Eunews, 11 September 2026