The China-EC/EU relationship, started in 1975, is a highly institutionalized, multidimensional and complex, but to some extent controversial international partnership. It is also challenged within the current unstable world. This book addresses the convergences and the differences (ideational, political, institutional and interests-related) between China and the EU by a collective interaction between Chinese and European scholars. Among other things the book assesses sectoral bilateral dialogue and focuses on the interplay between internal complexity and external policies, discusses ideational divergences in international law and rule of law and in many relevant policy fields. Furthermore, it compares sustainable growth policies; explores trade and investment controversies and negotiations, human rights dialogue; and addresses environment and climate change policies. This text will be of key interest to EU studies and politics, China studies and more broadly to area/Asian studies and international relations/global governance.

This book addresses the convergences and the differences (ideational, political, institutional, and interests-related) between China and the EU by a collective interaction between Chinese and European scholars.

This book provides an in-depth analysis of the relations between China and the EU, tracing the development of this complex, yet intriguing, relationship between two substantially different actors. To uncover a deeper understanding of this unlikely partnership, the authors analyze the partnership through the prism of contending norms and worldviews. The China-EU strategic partnership has evolved through fits and starts but despite continuous trade disputes and severe diplomatic misunderstandings, the EU and China pledge to uphold, even deepen, the partnership. Policy experts and scholars will learn how such contending bilateral relationships can be managed and establish a better understanding of deep-seated conceptual differences between these two entities.

Negotiations for a new EU-China Partnership & Cooperation Agreement have just got underway and are likely to take two to three years. This is the first book to explore the wide range of issues affecting the China-EU relationship, including the US factor, environmental issues, WTO, governance, trade matters, civil society, democracy, the RMB, energy security, arms embargo, UN reform, Taiwan, Japan, North Korea, Africa and many others. The result of an intense, collaborative exercise between over 30 respected Chinese and European scholars, this timely book highlights the necessity of a China-EU relationship and why it will be mutually beneficial. Recommendations for the harmonious development of relations between China and the EU are offered as well.

Since 2003, China and the EU have engaged in a Strategic Partnership with trade as its main pillar. As the Partnership develops, it deals increasingly with subjects that overlap with World Trade Organization negotiations. Furthermore, the two entities address a growing number of trade disputes at the bilateral level, diminishing the use of the WTO dispute settlement mechanism. The development of this strategic partnership as a competing negotiation and dispute settlement forum to the WTO is particularly puzzling because of the two entities’ opposing regime types, geographical and cultural distance, and lack of reciprocal strategic interest in each other’s regions. This research investigates two questions: What are the rationales behind the EU’s and China’s bilateral and multilateral spheres of negotiation? The empirical findings with regard to this question allow us to infer answers to a wider question: Why do such "unnatural" partners as the EU and China develop and consolidate such a strong trade relationship? This dissertation applies three theories stemming from major schools of international relations - soft-balancing, forum-shopping and prestige diplomacy - to four cases in order to explain the rationale behind the EU and China’s choice of forum in both regular negotiations (food safety and geographical indications) and in times of disputes (textile and solar panels). It then infers the motives behind the widening and deepening of the EU-China relationship from the reasons guiding the two actors’ preference for the bilateral channel. The empirical research finds that efficiency factors (forum-shopping) combined with the two entities’ prestige maximization strategies explain their choice of forums. In other words, the dramatic widening and deepening of the relationship in this short timeframe is due to a wish to maximize their absolute gains, as well as a desire to limit the potential loss of prestige they might suffer in the WTO (for example, by losing a case). This thesis employs original and exceptional data from interviews carried out in Beijing and Brussels in Chinese, French and English with policy makers currently overseeing the cases under scrutiny. The data is then triangulated, when applicable, with European strategic papers.

This book explores key elements of European Union (EU) engagement with the Belt Road Initiative (BRI), drawing on the expertise of leading practitioners and scholars of EU-China relations. Under the theme of discerning the BRI and its nexus with the EU, chapters examine the nature of the BRI as China’s approach to global governance and consider how BRI intersects with the EU as a very different regional integration project. Under the theme of BRI factors in EU law and policy, chapters examine the BRI as a factor in specific domains of EU law and policy, including investment, finance, the environment and the COVID-19 pandemic and consider EU responses. Under the theme of EU Member State experiences, chapters present a series of case studies of individual Member States, their engagement with the BRI and ongoing policy debates. This book will be of interest to scholars and students of International Relations, EU external relations, Chinese public policy and foreign relations, European studies and security studies as well as policymakers dealing with China in EU and Member State institutions.