The stress of strategic autonomy, which means more capacity building and independence in security and defence, increases continuously within EU recently. As an important approach of achieving strategic autonomy, European common defence is also accelerating. Goaded by unexpected factors as Brexit and Trump’s presidency, EU has taken considerable efforts in this direction since 2016. In addition to the steps on the policy level, some important steps on the operational level were also taken, including launching the European Defence Fund（EDF）, Coordinated Annual Review on Defence（CARD）and Military Planning and Conduct Capability（MPCC）. However, despite those accumulative and far-reaching progresses, the relations between EU and NATO set the limit both to the common defence and strategic autonomy.In general, EU’s efforts and progresses in strategic autonomy and European common defence represent important shift in international security, which deserve a close watch from China.