Earlier quoted context omitted.
The difference is, Europeans used to trust their US partners, and built a lot of infrastructure on US services. This trust has been betrayed, so things now need to change. It never existed to begin with with China, so no change is necessary. That's not "melodramatic".
There never was a relationship of mutual trust, it was always a relationship of Europe being under the wing of the US as a buffer against the USSR. The US now wants to push Europe out of the nest, but most Europeans have only ever known life "living in their parents house". Building an independent Europe is not compatible with the current European ethos of work/life/life/life balance, and will likely result in Europe…
On the European side, socialism is a question of who owns businesses. If the majority of businesses are owned by the people who are working at those businesses, you have a socialist economy. Welfare states, regulatory regimes, and high tax rates do not change the ownership of businesses, they are about who provides the infrastructure around those businesses. If you have an economy where infrastructure is owned by a liberal nation-state, and businesses are owned by whoever gambled capital on the venture, then you get a capitalist economy. If your infrastructure is privately owned by individuals, then those owners become feudal lords and you get feudalism.
On the Chinese side, you might point out that there are laws that require CCP ownership of all businesses, eat the party line that says the CCP is the representative of the working class, and say, "hey that's a socialism". But this ownership and representation is purely nominal. The average Chinese worker has more or less zero political agency; speaking out gets you censored and harassed. How is that worker ownership? If, say, America started punishing individual shareholders who voted against Trump-aligned board members, we'd correctly recognize that the shareholders do not meaningfully own their businesses anymore.
"Moving into Daddy Xi's house" would be stupid. The EU and China are not aligned on basically any core value; it'd basically be a surrender of one to the other. Actually, to be clear, the EU isn't even aligned on basically any core value with itself[0]. In fact, I would argue that's a way bigger headwind than European workers being used to a top-heavy welfare state. The EU has the resources to build a sovereign cloud, or run its own military, or source its own energy. But for each one there are challenges posed by the uniquely decentralized structure of Europe:
- Europe could build a sovereign cloud, but probably not one for each member state. So they're going to have to agree what country holds the data, and agree that that country can and will spy on all the others.
- Europe could fund its own military, tell NATO to pound sand, and re-colonize America for the trouble. But who runs that military? Given the history of EU politics, it would be France and Germany, and every other country in the EU has a history of being colonized by France or Germany. They are not trustworthy.
- Europe could fix its energy dependence, but Germany thinks nuclear power is Satan and wants to backstop renewables with the dirtiest-burning coal you can mine.
You'll notice a recurring theme here. The problem with Europe is not its fiscal deficit, the perceived laziness of its workers, or what have you. It's the lack of trust. The most trustworthy member state of the European Union was the United States of America, and so that's why everyone put their data on American servers, and let America dominate NATO, and so on. This is not Europe getting kicked out of the nest, it's the kids realizing their parent is a gaslighting asshole and that all their siblings, including themselves, are cut from the same cloth.
[0] Trump's current tariff actions and threats of territory annexation have galvanized the European public against America's government. However, prior to Trump coming back, Europe was full of far-right nutjobs that were just as cringe. Actually, a lot of them are still in power in Europe, and they're way more competent and cunning than Cheeto Mussolini.