European allies need to stop underestimating China when considering sensitive economic partnerships, a U.S. official warned Thursday in a display of disagreement with Europe over how to counter the communist power.

“You cannot look at these as purely economically driven projects,” Julia Fisher, the deputy assistant secretary of state for Western Europe and the European Union, told an audience of military and diplomatic officials. “That’s not what drives folks in the Kremlin, and it’s not what drives folks in Beijing.”