China’s ascendancy as a world power over recent decades has been a globally celebrated story of success. The country’s burgeoning prosperity has raised millions of its citizens from poverty and produced a massive increase in global wealth and trade.

But not everyone is celebrating China’s amassment of power.

China’s newfound economic clout has enabled it to act with a growing geopolitical assertiveness that many, especially in the West, have found unsettling. Western nations have increasingly called attention to China’s tarnished human rights record, its heavy-handed political repression, and its support of tyrannical Third World regimes in a rapacious drive for resources.

The most vocal of these criticisms have often originated in Europe rather than America. In the face of such criticisms, China has rarely missed an opportunity to display its defiance toward the supposed moral authority of the West. This behavior highlights the aggression and impunity with which China has asserted its power. More importantly, however, it reveals the simmering competitive hostility between China and Europe.

Several recent acts of defiance by China provide a telling glimpse into the feelings of mutual antipathy building between these civilizations.

Copenhagen Climate Conference

Leaders from almost every country in the world assembled at December’s climate change conference in Copenhagen, in order to create a comprehensive, legally binding international agreement to curb carbon emissions. But the conference failed to accomplish this goal, due in large part to China’s refusal to accept proposed regulations.

China staunchly resisted pressure from Western nations to submit to international emissions monitoring, and led Brazil, India and African nations in refusing the proposals. The unsuccessful summit was an especially bitter disappointment for European leaders, many of whom were quick to lay the blame at China’s feet.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that the Copenhagen conference had witnessed a “self-assertive China”; she stood alongside German Environment Minister Norbert Röttgen in ascribing to Beijing the bulk of the blame for the mediocre results.

Röttgen called China’s refusal to accept a pledge to reduce carbon emissions by 80 percent by 2050 the low point of the negotiations. He said Beijing’s priority was not on protecting the environment, but on “obstruction.”

The Chinese Foreign Ministry responded to Western criticism without apology. It advised critics to “stay away from activities that hinder the international community’s cooperation in coping with climate change.”

Sentencing a Dissident

On December 25, just as the Copenhagen debacle was fading from the headlines, China again provoked the ire of European governments by issuing a harsh 11-year prison sentence to Chinese human rights activist Liu Xiaobo for “subversion.” Balking at Western calls for leniency, Chinese courts imposed this unusually severe punishment in response to Mr. Liu’s authorship of several articles calling for greater political freedoms. The sentencing met with widespread international condemnation, most notably from Germany.

German conservative newspaper Die Welt reported the jailing of Mr. Liu as sending “a devastating signal” that has wrecked the image of a responsible rising power that China has sought to cultivate. Chancellor Merkel expressed her dismay at the harsh sentence, stating that “it is regrettable that … China still massively restricts freedom of opinion and of the press.”

China’s Foreign Ministry struck back at these criticisms with the bitter charge that Western governments were engaged in “gross interference” in Chinese domestic affairs.

A Controversial Execution

Just on the heels of this diplomatic spat, on December 30, Chinese officials executed British national Akmal Shaikh after a conviction for drug smuggling, despite repeated appeals by the British government for clemency based on Mr. Shaikh’s questionable state of mental health. China flatly ignored diplomatic pleas for a psychiatric evaluation, provoking a firestorm of anger in Western nations as it proceeded with the execution.

Among the most outspoken of the protesters were several German voices. Günter Nooke of Chancellor Merkel’s conservative Christian Democrats said, “To the Chinese leadership, this was about a demonstration of power rather than rule of law.” Center-left German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung called China a “hypersensitive behemoth,” saying that in its international dealings, it “shows an immaturity that is no longer appropriate given its size and importance in the world.”

China’s Foreign Ministry again lashed out against this chorus of criticisms, even warning the British to “correct their mistake in order to avoid harming China-UK relations.” Germany’s Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper summed up the incident as underscoring “China’s contempt for the West.”

Tensions Will Escalate

This string of disputes highlights the reputation for arrogance China has earned as it asserts its independent foreign policy. Most significant, however, is what this animosity between China and Europe portends. As America and Britain give way to their own crushing problems, Bible prophecy indicates the German-dominated EU will soon stand alone as the foremost Western superpower. A glance at modern history should remind us this is not a recipe for peace.

For a time, the diplomatic rifts between Europe and China will be eclipsed by these powers’ shared desire to undermine American power, and by Europe’s preoccupation with provocations from Iran. But human nature ensures that the underlying hostility between these economic behemoths will not dissolve. Rather, Bible prophecy shows that the troubling signals Europe sees from China and its allies will eventually reach a breaking point and culminate in the greatest military conflagration in mankind’s strife-ridden history. Behind a front of reserved diplomacy, the ideological fault lines between China and the European Union are certain to crack further.

For a detailed study of the events leading to this coming East-West clash of civilizations, read Russia and China in Prophecy.