[brendoelfrendo]

The US and the Soviets were able to cooperate on space missions in spite of their enmity. It's not unreasonable to think that Europe could work with China on a scientific mission, even if the EU or its member states want to keep China at arms-length otherwise. There's an interesting moral quandary there, as to whether cooperation with a totalitarian regime helps diminish or consolidate the regime's power, but this daylight savings thing here in the US is throwing me for a loop so I'm going to have to leave that unanswered for now.

[microtonal]

There's an interesting moral quandary there, as to whether cooperation with a totalitarian regime helps diminish or consolidate the regime's power, but this daylight savings thing here in the US is throwing me for a loop so I'm going to have to leave that unanswered for now.

To be honest (I say this as an European), we have tougher nuts to crack the worrying whether cooperation with China will diminish or consolidate it's power. Our focus is now on defending peace and democracy in Europe (and on a larger scale non-US NATO). To say that China has its issues is an understatement (everyone has), but they are too far away to be a threat short- to midterm. Plus China also values international trade stability. So it would be silly not to look where we can (cautiously) cooperate.

Ideally we would like to continue to work with the US. But the US is less interested in Europe now and that creates a vacuum that will lead to new trade alliances.

[matt-p]

It is what it is, IF the USA is now europe's enemy, and aligning with Russia (cutting off ukraine from satellites, disabling F16s, hummilaiting the leader in press confrences, calling him a dictator in the press and JD calling us "random countries that haven't fought a war in 30 years" are all indicating that's true). We will forced to look for other friends, I'm not sure we have the luxury of complete ideological alignment, instead a pragmatic but considered strategic approach shall have to do. I for one think we've bigger fish to fry, "The enemy of my enemy is my friend" and all that.