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THE current partnership between the European Union (EU) and China cannot be described as strategic. They have a dense political relationship, including dialogues on subjects that range from human rights to science, migration and monetary policy. A “trade and economic cooperation agreement” of 1985 sets the framework for the relationship. A new “partnership and cooperation agreement”, on which talks began in 2007, is due to replace it. Since 1998 there have been annual China EU summits, and since 2005, annual “strategic dialogues” at vice foreign minister level. And in April 2008, in Beijing, the European Commission and the Chinese government unveiled a new “high level mechanism” to discuss economic and trade issues.
But all these meetings do not add up to the “comprehensive strategic partnership” that the two sides committed themselves to in 2003. In May 2004, Chinese prime minister, Wen Jiabao explained (during a lecture in Brussels) what he thought a strategic partnership meant:
“Strategic” means that the cooperation should be long term and stable, bearing on the larger picture of China EU relations. It transcends the differences in ideology and social systems and is not subjected to the impact of individual events that occur from time to time. “Partnership” means that the cooperation should be equal, mutually beneficial and win win. The two sides should base themselves on mutual respect and mutual trust, endeavour to expand converging interests and seek common ground on the major issues while shelving differences on the minor ones.”
Wen’s definition of partnership is a good one, and we agree that strategic should mean a focus on the long term, rather than the short term. We would add two further definitions of a strategic relationship: it should cover not only economics, but also high politics and questions of security; and it should focus on a smaller number of major priorities, rather than attempt to cover every subject under the sun.
Looked at this way, the EU’s relationship with China is far from strategic. First, it has tended to focus on the short term, dealing with questions such as whether China should be classified as a market economy status, or whether the EU should place claims on the number of Chinese bras imported.
Second, the relationship has so far focused mainly on economics. Long term economic trends evidently have strategic implications. China’s remarkable economic rise has alerted the world to its importance, driven the country to look for raw materials in every continent, paid for the modernisation of its armed forces and made China a threat to the global climate. And economic disputes have the potential to spoil, or spill over into, political relations. Nevertheless, until the EU and China think more about their common interests and potential disagreements on questions of global security, their partnership cannot be called truly strategic.
Third, the EU’s relationship with China is not focused. According to the Commission, there are now twenty seven separate sectoral agreements and dialogues, covering subjects like climate change, regional policy, maritime transport, tourism, space science, the EU’s research and development programmes, the ITER nuclear fusion reactor,(1) university links, social security reform and the convergence of product standards.
Those involved in the dialogues say that some of them make a difference. For example, the dialogue on car exhaust emission standards led to China adopting EU rules in this area. Another dialogue links seventeen Chinese universities and research institutions to EU universities. They discuss topics like budgets, exchanges of personnel and new curricula. A third example, for which China’s Ministry of Labour is the EU’s partner, is social security reform. China’s employer based system of welfare has broken down, and the government has been looking to European countries for inspiration, with Sweden’s egalitarian system attracting particular attention. The EU also finances a plethora of capacity building projects in China, such as the China Europe International Business School in Shanghai, and the China Europe Law School in Beijing.
In addition to the EU’s dialogues and projects in China, individual member states have their own schemes and programmes in areas such as education, healthcare, the environment, media reform and poverty reduction. The US also supports these kinds of project. But the European states do rather more than the US(2) to train Chinese people outside their own country. In 2008 there are about 170,000 Chinese students in Europe, compared with 67,000 in the US. European countries train People’s Liberation Army (PLA) officers in their staff colleges, and design special training courses for Chinese Communist Party (CCP) cadres, lawyers, judges and prison officers. The US provides much less training for those kinds of people.
“The EU China relationship is much broader and deeper than the US China relationship,” says Zhou Hong, head of the Europe Institute at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. The top politicians may not be aware of the twenty seven dialogues, “but the experts involved in these various fields understand the true nature of the relationship. What matters are not words but deeds. This kind of dialogue changes real life slowly and quietly.” But although some of the programmes and dialogues that link the EU and China undoubtedly add value, they do not amount to a strategic partnership. As proponents of a multipolar world, many Chinese leaders believe that China would benefit from an EU that was a more effective strategic actor (of course, that does not prevent them—like the Americans and the Russians—from exploiting European divisions for their own advantage). Similarly, many European leaders are happy to talk about the desirability of a more strategic relationship with China. But such a relationship would require the Europeans to learn to speak and act together when they deal with China, which they currently find very hard to do.
Divided Europe
Both the EU and the Chinese government are organised in ways that make it hard for either side to treat the relationship as strategic. The EU is an organisation that does not easily think strategically about foreign policy. The Commission is responsible for the EU’s trade policy and the overall economic relationship with China. In 2006, 19 of the twenty seven commissioners found a reason to visit China. But no commissioner has had overall charge of the relationship, and the various commissioners and their officials have not always coordinated their trips or shared information. In 2008 Commission President José Manuel Barroso made an effort to ensure a more integrated approach, and in April he led a group of nine commissioners to Beijing.
The lack of coordination between the Commission and the Council of Ministers—responsible for the political side of the EU’s external relations—is another problem. The Commission officials negotiating with China on a partnership and cooperation agreement are aware that the Chinese are unlikely to sign it without the EU lifting its arms embargo. But the arms embargo is a matter for the officials working under High Representative Javier Solana in the Council of Ministers, and the two groups of officials, apparently, have had little contact. “If there is ever a case for having a single EU ‘foreign minister’, to replace the jobs now done by Solana and Benita Ferrero Waldner [the commissioner for external relations], it is the way the EU handles China”, says one senior Commission official.
The Council, just like the Commission, has problems handling China. In recent years, Solana has lacked senior officials with expertise on China. A bigger problem is that the twenty seven member states have found it hard to agree on a common line—despite the fact that they share very similar interests in China. They all want it to run an economy that is open to trade and investment; to get serious about curbing carbon emissions; to respect human rights; to move towards a more pluralistic political system; to maintain friendly relations with its neighbours; to act cautiously on Taiwan; and to engage in dialogue with the Dalai Lama.
On some issues, the EU has a clear and unified position, such as (for now) to maintain the arms embargo, and to ask China to ratify the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Trade commissioner Peter Mandelson speaks for the Union on many commercial issues, since external trade is an EU competence—although the national capitals argue furiously over what Mandelson’s mandate should be. But on several other important questions, such as how to respond to the tensions between China and Taiwan, or to the protests in Tibet, the Europeans have found it hard to forge common policies. And Solana can only speak for the EU when the twenty seven can agree on a single line...
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1. ITER was originally an acronym for International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, but that title was dropped due to the negative popular connotation of “thermonuclear,” especially when in conjunction with “experimental”. “Iter”, in Latin, also means “journey”, “direction” or “way”, and this double meaning reflects ITER’s role in harnessing nuclear fusion as a peaceful power source. [Quoted from Wikipedia. Editor’s note].
2. David Shambaugh, “Seeing the big picture in American and European relations with China: Past, present and future”, forthcoming in Shambaugh and Gudrun Wacker eds., Transatlantic Policies Towards China: Deepening the Partnership, Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik, 2008.
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Charles Grant has been director of the Centre for European Reform since 1998. He previously worked for Euromoney and The Economist. He is author of “Delors: Inside the house that Jacques built”, published in 1994, and numerous CER publications, including, most recently, “European choices for Gordon Brown” and “Preparing for the multipolar world: European foreign and security policy in 2020”, both published in 2007.
Katinka Barysch is the CER’s deputy director. Until 2002, she worked as an economist and analyst at the Economist Intelligence Unit. Before that she was a consultant and researcher for the European Commission. Recent CER publications include: (as coauthor) “The Lisbon scorecard VIII: Is Europe ready for an economic storm?”, February 2008; “Turkey’s role in European energy security”, December 2007; and “Russia, realism and EU unity”, July 2007. |
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| Issue 6.3 |
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Remembering—
A Shared Duty
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