On re-balancing EU-China relations
and EU's misaligned China
After a strategic break, this issue zooms in on an article written by Jin Ling, a senior research fellow and director of the Department for European Studies at the Chinese MOFA think tank China Institute of International Studies (or CIIS). The article was originally published in the April issue of the Journal Contemporary World, a journal linked to the International Department of the CCP.
The article titled “The Transformation of the EU under Multiple Difficulties and the ‘Re-balancing’ of China-EU Relations” begins with a description of the EU’s malaise, which in Jin Ling’s view boils down to the weakening of the EU’s “so-called” normative power identity, which goes hand in and with a decline in the influence of the European development model, and a decrease in soft power, which is linked to the EU’s economic power.
Jin Ling is suggesting that Europe has neglected its hard power in favor of soft power and the current geopolitical conflicts are exposing the limits of this approach.
If Europe only preaches principles and values and shies away from demonstrating strength, it will become ‘eternally right’ but irrelevant.
Europe’s economic decline led to a shift away from traditional free market ideas towards (economic) interventionism and de-risking. In essence, this shift resulted in the politicization of economic and trade sectors. Jin Ling’s assessment of recent European policies aimed at addressing competitiveness highlights the EU’s struggle between openness and strategic autonomy.
MISALIGNMENT OF THE EU’S CHINA POLICY
She describes the overall historical development of the relationship in positive terms, and points out
The history of the development of China-Europe relations clearly demonstrates the underlying logic of healthy and sustainable development, including strategic consensus without geopolitical conflicts, interdependent economic and trade cooperation, and cultural dialogue and exchange that sets aside ideological disputes.
However, she is wary about the goals of the EU’s transformation and the potential problems they could cause, which could lead to significant misalignments in the EU’s China policy.
At the beginning of this evolving misalignment, Jin Ling refers to the 2019 Strategic Outlook. In her view, China has always seen the EU as a strategic and economic partner, but the EU has “deviated” from this definition of partnership by adopting the descriptions competitor and “systemic rival. She believes that the EU’s perception of China as a “competitor and systemic rival” shows a shift towards “systemic competitor”.
Currently, due to tensions in China-EU electric vehicle trade issues and differing stances on the Ukraine crisis, the EU’s misperception of China has become increasingly pronounced. The EU stubbornly views the electric vehicle dispute as a manifestation of China as a “systemic rival” in the economic and trade domain, ignoring the objective reality of its own declining competitiveness and lagging green transition. On the Ukraine issue, the EU believes the crisis poses a threat to its survival, leading to a misreading of China-Russia relations and a biased perception that China supports Russia on the Ukraine issue, thereby threatening the EU’s core security interests. Against the backdrop of this misperception of China, the EU has increasingly intensified its narrative of competition or confrontation with China, whether referencing its own "Indo-Pacific Strategy" or the Global Gateway initiative, both of which implicitly aim to counter China’s influence or provide alternative options. The EU’s shift toward geopolitical competition in its perception of China poses a serious challenge to the long-standing strategic consensus that “China and the EU have no geopolitical conflicts.”
Moreover, she points out, that the EU is gradually moving from openness towards a strategic autonomy that has protectionism at its core. She refers to “de-risking” and “economic security” as examples.
Although the EU continuously emphasizes that its "de-risking" strategy is not aimed at China, since von der Leyen's speech on China policy in March 2023, the EU's "de-risking" approach toward China has increasingly formed a political consensus. Against this backdrop, the EU’s economic and trade policy debate with China has shifted from "mutual dependence and mutual benefit" to “risks of mutual dependence,” showing a trend toward "politicization" and "securitization."
In the author’s view, de-risking is not only worsening the bilateral trade relationship from a macro-perspective, it is also reducing the likelihood of resolving these issues through bilateral political dialogue, as well as reducing companies’ expectations of trade cooperation between the EU and China. Here, Jin Ling refers to the 2024/2025 Chinese Chamber of Commerce report, in which a majority of Chinese companies negatively assesses the overall business environment in the EU. //n.b. She does not mention the European Union Chamber of Commerce reports, which since years consistently raise issues pertaining to level-playing field, market access discrimination and an overall politicization of the business environment in China.
Furthermore, she identifies the shift to the right in the EU’s domestic politics as a reason for the EU’s tougher approach towards China.
A conservative and inward-looking EU can hardly participate in globalization and support free trade with an open mindset, and may even consider globalization to have gone “too far”. To some extent, the EU is a "loser" in globalization, while emerging countries, represented by China, have benefited from it. For this reason, the EU needs to strengthen the protection of its own interests and enhance its competitiveness. This means that the trade and economic policies led by the European Commission, aimed at strengthening “protection” and intensifying competition with China, are unlikely to change in the short term.
This political shift also plays a role in the relative distribution of power between the EU institutions and the member states. According to Jin Ling, the power of the European Commission has increased and the influence of the “French-German axis” has decreased. This has a major impact on the relationship with China, since, after all it was the Commission that proposed the partner-competitor-rival definition, de-risking, economic security and emphasized coordination with the US on China-related issues.
Against the backdrop of the European Commission's continuous expansion of power, although China shares strong common interests and cooperation potential with many EU member states, the Commission's geopolitical shift and increasing emphasis on competition with China will inevitably disrupt pragmatic cooperation between China and the EU.
Finally, the EU’s changing security concept impacts the bilateral relationship. With this, Jin Ling means that stable trade relations were the stabilizing factor (on this here) in EU-China relations, this changed after the beginning “conflict” in Ukraine. She complains that
The EU increasingly views China and Russia as intertwined, not only misjudging and misinterpreting China's policy stance on the Ukraine crisis but also harboring unrealistic expectations toward China. It treats China's position on the Ukraine issue as a prerequisite for developing bilateral relations, pressuring China from a conflict perspective. This has made the Ukraine crisis a primary factor disrupting the healthy development of China-EU relations.
In this regard, HR/VP Kallas’s remarks in the European Parliament in October 2024 - that safeguarding the EU’s geopolitical and economic security is central to its engagement with China - is highlighted by her as a “dangerous tendency” towards prioritizing security issues in the EU-China relationship.
SEEKING A RE-BALANCING
Due to the asymmetries in the relationship (i.e. different political system, history, and stage of development), Jin writes, China and the EU have constantly accommodated each other (in the past) and realized a strategic stability in their relationship. “Facing changes not seen in a hundred years”, it is unavoidable that the EU-China relationship will experience reconfiguration and friction. From the past fifty years, she has discerned the following three lessons.
First, confronted with the remodeling of the international order, both need to re-establish a consensus from a strategic perspective. She points to the historically experience, in which both sides were able to overcome ideological differences and Cold War restrictions and establish the relationship, which reflected the strategic consensus to resist hegemony. //Of course, this is a rather peculiar argument. While the PRC harbored hopes that the establishment of the relationship between the European Communities in 1975 and the PRC could have anti-hegemonic implications (vis-a-vis the USSR, not against the US), it was the rapprochement between the US, the other hegemonic power, and the PRC that created the conditions for Commission Vice-President Soames’s trip to Beijing. To suggest that the EC had reached a strategic consensus to resist (USS) hegemony is in my view an exaggeration.
Jin also refers to the “honey-moon” period that lasted from the end of the Cold War (//and perhaps after overcoming the 1989 shock) and until the early 2000’s during which both sides understood the relationship from a strategic and partnership perspective. In her view, “history proves that as long as the EU views China from a strategic perspective and regards China as a partner, China-EU relations will be able to achieve stability and development.”
The world today once again stands at a historical crossroads: whether to pursue cooperation and mutual benefit or a new Cold War, to choose "decoupling" and "breaking chains" or mutual interdependence, to opt for ideological confrontation or mutual learning among civilizations. The EU's choices will have a fundamental impact on the development of China-EU relations. In the face of an increasingly turbulent international situation, weakening multilateral mechanisms, and a global economy under growing pressure—especially the uncertainty brought by a potential "Trump 2.0"—China and the EU should be partners, not competitors. Moving toward each other would help promote a just and reasonable transformation of the international order. Against the backdrop of China consistently valuing and emphasizing the EU's role as a strategic partner, the EU needs to break free from zero-sum thinking and build an objective strategic positioning toward China, rather than treating China as an "rival."
The second lesson from the past-fifty years is to deal with competition and friction in a rational way and to realize common development through mutual benefit. After all,
China has provided Europe with a stable and reliable market and investment destination. The dividends of China's economic development have enabled Europe to maintain economic stability and ensure employment, while Europe's deep participation in China's reform and opening-up process has also been an indispensable factor in China's development and prosperity.
But to achieve this,
The EU needs to move beyond zero-sum thinking and rationally view China's development and China-EU economic and trade relations. Facing the challenge of insufficient competitiveness, the EU cannot enhance its strength through so-called "de-risking" but should focus on promoting green and digital transformations to boost competitiveness, embracing the huge market opportunities brought by China's further opening up with a cooperative mindset. At the same time, on the new journey toward Chinese-style modernization, the EU is also an indispensable partner for China, as evidenced by the inherent logic of the current resilience of China-EU economic and trade relations despite challenges. Both history and reality show that the only path for the development of China-EU economic and trade relations is for the EU to meet China halfway, working together for mutual benefit and win-win cooperation.
Finally, the last lesson is peaceful coexistence of different development models, and overcoming the “conflict of models”. She points out that despite the “misalignment of perception” on human rights, democracy, and rule by law, as long as Europe strengthens dialogue with China and approaches the differences with China with an inclusive and open mindset, EU-China relations will develop along the trajectory of cooperation. //n.b. an “open mindset on human rights and democracy” in this context likely means to dilute standards or have no at all (value relativism// But,
Of course, in response to the current misinterpretations of China in Europe due to differences in systems, culture, and ideology, China should also promote more effective people-to-people exchanges with Europe, fully leveraging the role of political parties, civil society, and other diplomatic channels to effectively tell the story of China and the Communist Party of China.
Jin finishes the article highlighting that the world is at a crossroads: Will the world return to a might makes right “jungle era” or will multilateralism be uphold and the stability of the international order safeguarded? The strategic choice of the EU and China will be extremely important.
The year 2025 marks both the 80th anniversary of the founding of the United Nations and the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and the EU. China and the EU should jointly oppose all forms of unilateralism and hegemonism, work together to advance the reform and construction of the global governance system, and promote the development of the international order in a more just and reasonable direction. Through continuous efforts to promote fairness in rights, opportunities, and rules, they should advance the modernization of human society.
//The overall impression from reading her analysis is that the problems in EU–China relations, also known as the EU’s misalignment of its China policy, stem from the EU’s own weak competitiveness, the war in Ukraine and the impact of the pandemic. While these circumstances certainly influence the EU’s overall policymaking, there is no recognition whatsoever that China’s own actions and policies, whether intentional or not, could have directly or indirectly caused the EU to shift its China policy. Of course, if one rationalizes that one’s own policy is always correct (i.e. based on the correct understanding of international developments) it can be difficult to acknowledge that third countries may perceive China's trade practices or diplomatic stances as not benevolent. Worryingly, this view from a Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs think tank expert lends credence to a narrative of victimhood. This narrative suggests that China has done nothing wrong and is deliberately being singled out by failing Western economies in search of a scapegoat. Given this understanding of the development of EU-China relations, it is hard to envisage the EU and China reaching an agreement on their major disagreements.
Cross Purposes translates and contextualizes Chinese experts' views on EU-China relations. Opinions other than those referred to are my own and do not reflect those of any other individual or institution. Mistakes are my own.