A new era in EU-China relations: more wide-ranging strategic cooperation?

China was an important strategic partner for the EU, despite fundamental divergences in some areas, mostly related to state intervention and fundamental human rights. The partnership offered mutually beneficial cooperation and dialogue in areas ranging from investment and transport to human rights and cybersecurity.

China was navigating in new directions, guided by Xi Jinping's 'Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era’. Despite President Xi’s repeated avowals that 'the market will have a decisive role', public ownership remained the mainstay of the Chinese economy, whereas profound reforms would be needed to tackle the root causes of overcapacity in various industrial sectors.

Xi's ‘Belt and Road Initiative’, now also included in the Constitution, was the flagship international connectivity and infrastructure programme dominated by Chinese state-owned companies.

Overall, China’s crucial, but complex transition towards more sustainable growth would eventually benefit both, China and the world as a whole. Global economic interdependence, however, made certain spill-over effects of China’s rebalancing unavoidable. China played a pivotal role in global governance and the rules-based international order, and this came with responsibilities. Beijing had begun to shift away from the narrow pursuit of national aims towards a more assertive foreign and security policy, and increased financial, economic and security cooperation with a global outreach.

China was also facing domestic concerns, such as lifting millions of people out of poverty and reducing ever-growing income inequalities, deterioration in the situation of human rights and freedoms as well as endemic corruption.

• Primary Source

Carnegie Europe: Strategic Europe, 19.07.18: Trump Provides China an Opening in Europe https://carnegieeurope.eu/strategiceurope/76872

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