Eu_and_China_Relations

The European Union (EU) and China can be seen as emerging global strategic actors. For some time, their economic and demographic weight has imbued them with the potential to become global actors in the politico-military dimension of the world affairs. However, only recently have they actively undertaken policies in these fields. The comparative economic and demographic strength of the EU and China imply that their emergence as global strategic actors constitutes as a new structural factor with an enormous potential impact on world order (Edmonds pg. 8, 11). This potential first became apparent to the EU. The ongoing development of the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP), to which was later added the military arm of the European Security and Defense Policy (ESDP), has led to unsolved questions regarding the nature of the transatlantic partnership between Europe and the United States. China set foot on the state slightly later, but this step caused even more reverberation because China was considered the most likely future opponent of the dominant global power and leading to advocate of a liberal world order, the United States (Edmonds pg. 8, 11). In this disquisition we will aim to assess whether the EU and China just have their position as debutants on the international politico-military scene in common, or whether they share strategic views to an extent that would allow them to establish a true strategic partnership, systematic coordination, joint initiatives and practical cooperation on wide range of foreign and security policy issues. At the heart of China’s relations with the European Union lie two key strategic issues. First is China’s objective of regaining its rightful place as a “great power” (Shambaugh pg, 27). Second, there is the question of the best means for China to articulate its rising power through the international arena. China’s quest for great power status is a long-standing one, but over the last thirty years of the reform era China’s public discourse on how it proposes to achieve this status has become progressively more moderate. China has not always been able to resolve the tension between these two issues. The first, which is the paramount power of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and, its continuing sensitivity to issues of territorial sovereignty (primarily Taiwan). The second affair is its realist concern with wedding economic power to military capability creates doubt about China’s intentions. But China has devoted considerable diplomatic effort into dispelling such doubts using “reassurance” strategy (Deng pg, 58). This strategy aims to continue China’s path to great power status through co-operative engagement with the global economy and the international system of states, while trying not to create counterbalancing actions, particularly from the United States (Shambaugh pg, 175). China has become an increasingly active diplomatic player at the global level and especially in its own region, seeking positive relations in bilateral and multilateral levels. However, during the Cold War, Sino-European relations were mainly derivative of a Cold War imperatives and broader relations with the two superpowers. Due to the political and ideological constraints of the era, it was the development of economic and commercial relations that became the priority. On April 1978, the European Council (EC) and China signed a trade agreement, which in 1985 was extended to a broader Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) (Shi pg, 16). The EC offered China the status of the Most Favored Nation (MFN) and included the Beijing community Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) provisions from 1980. As a result, by 1989 two-way trade totaled $13 billion. This amounted to a mere 15% of China’s total foreign trade, and a scant 1% of total European Community trade. Among West European countries, Germany gained the upper hand, accounting for nearly 40% (Shi pg, 164). Strategically, from the mid 1980’s onwards, Chinese leaders started to consider Western Europe’s potential role as a new pole in a future multipolar world order and not only as a stronghold against Soviet hegemonies as in the 1970’s (Volgy pg, 90). There was a growing realization in Beijing at the time that the European integration process would have a major role to play the gradual political emancipation of Eastern Europe from Moscow. In the post-Cold War era, both the EU and China intend to play a greater role in international affairs to promote the formation of a political structure that facilitates the ascendance of their political influence globally. In particular, the Chinese government has been getting closer to the position of the EU in advocating multilateralism in its external relations. However, until 1991, only a few European countries pursued relations with Beijing independently from Washington and Moscow- the exception being Scandinavian countries, Albania and France (Deng pg, 95). The US’s West European allies cooperated in the implementation of Washington’s trade and strategic embargo on China, demonstrated in the efforts of the Paris-based COCOM (Coordinating Committee for the Control of Strategic exports to Communist Countries) to place an embargo on high technology sales and transfers to People’s Republic of China (PRC) (Barysch pg, 79). The crackdown in student demonstrations on June 4, 1989 in Tiananmen Square had a considerable impact on China’s relations with Western Europe. In the aftermath of the massacre the EC responded by imposing a range of sanctions that paralleled those of the US. At the EC summit in Madrid on June 23 1989, European leaders agreed to impose punitive economic sanctions individually and in the framework of the European Community, suspended all military contacts arms sales, withhold all ministerial-level official visits to China and defer those already scheduled, freeze all government-guaranteed loans, and issue a strong statement condemning the massacre(Barysch pg,90). However, in the months following the massacre, China made a number of minor changes to its human rights legislation and these were received by the EC as a justification to restore normal relations. As a result, most West European sanctions were lifted during the summer of 1990(Barysch pg, 90). Domestic developments in China after Tiananmen, the end of the Cold War and the gathering pace of the globalization process created new possibilities for the development of the EU-China relations. With the exception of arms sales, cooperation and trade relations had been fully restored by 1991. Negotiations for China’s General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) accession, which had been broken off in 1989, was restarted in 1991(Crossick pg, 160). The EU’s aid to China increased significantly in the first half of the 1990’s. The only explicit form of political pressure that survived the immediate reaction to the Tiananmen Square events was the EU’s practice of tabling a resolution criticizing China’s human rights record in the annual meeting of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR) (Deng, pg 69). The normalization of the relations with China in the post-Cold War period was part of the development of a new European Asia strategy. The German government became the first EU member state to put forward, the 1993, a strategy towards Asia. The new significance of the East Asian markets for Europe became prominently evident in 1992, when EU trade with East Asia overtook EU-US trade for the first time. At the time, Europe as a whole had to strengthen economic relations with the largest growth region in the world in order to maintain Europe’s’ leading role in the world economy (Shi pg, 20). In the summer of 1994, the European Commission adopted the EU’s New Asia Strategy (NAS). In the context of NAS, in July 1995 the European Commission released its Communication: A Long-Term Policy for China-Europe Relations. The document declared that the time has come to redefine the EU’s relationship with China, in the spirit of the new Asia strategy (Shambaugh, pg 95). With the aim of allocating the EU member states relationship with the PRC into a single integrated framework, the Commission declared that relations with China are bound to be a foundation for Europe’s external relations, both with Asia and globally. The Commission document’s point of departure is the rise of China, seen as an unprecedented event since the Second World War. In the first EU-China summit in 1998, the Chinese proposed to use the term “multipolarity” in the final common declaration (Edmonds pg. 19, 24). The EU prefers multilateralism to multipolarity. Chinese multilateralism is aimed at creating a peaceful, benevolent environment, thereby allowing China to build up its economic globalization to conceive its great power potential. Both the EU and China impose US hegemony and are supportive of the development of a multipolar international system (Edmonds pg. 19, 24). Multipolarity involves traditional power balancing not through alliances but through the concept of strategic partnerships. In practice, multipolarity involves partial cooperation with powers that are willing to counter US security policies, and the EU is one such power. The EU equally recognized China’s interest in supporting global multipolarity and in resisting perceived US hegemony. (Edmonds pg. 19, 24). Any discussion of China and the European Union forming a multipolar balance of power needs to abide with China’s recognition of its limitations in mind. The development of a strategic partnership between China and the European Union conformed to the broad objectives of a reassurance approach. From the mid-1990s, onwards China developed similar partnerships with a range of states – the great powers and rising states gaining most attention –and more recently these have been extended to regional organizations such as ASEAN and the European Union (Crossick pg, 92). China sought to enhance its own international position through closer relations with other great powers while protecting the autonomy that could be sacrificed through alignment with any one state or regional organization. For the moment, China wants to convince its partners that it can make the transition to equal great power status in a non-confrontational way that consciously avoids balancing against a third party(Volgy pg 96). China continues cooperation with the EU in the areas of service, trade investment, and science and technology owing to its concerns about sustaining economic growth. China is the EU’s second digest trade partner and the EU is Chinas’ first trading partner (Shi pg, 14). If current trends continue, Beijing is supposed to become the Union’s most important commercial partner in the future. Although EU-China political relations have grown considerably, economic relations are the cornerstone of EU-China relations, calling for enhanced policy adjustments and cooperation. A major obstacle for these plans is EU concerns about the trade imbalance with China (Shi pg 12). Chinese exports to Europe are seen to crowd the European manufacturing and labor and give rise to trade disputes because of the widening trade imbalance, which was around 106 billion Euros in 2005(Shi pg 12 ). In the EU’s view, China needs to meet its obligations as a member of the World Trade Organization (WTO), where areas the EU needs to focus on becoming more competitive. According to EU trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson, the EU cannot continue to silence calls for greater protection from China in Europe unless China complies with internationally recognized trade standards such as those for intellectual property rights (Shi pg 15). Serious obstacles for economic cooperation between the EU and China thus remain, which calls for adjustment. Most importantly, China-EU relations should no longer be based on the assumption that China is a developing country in need of EU assistance and needs to be changed to a balanced relationship of equal partnership. The security and political dimensions of the EU’s multilateralism pose more problems that are fundamental for EU-China relations. In the political field, China has taken small steps towards democratization (Edmonds pg. 19, 24). For example, the semi-democracy in the rural villages and the control of local corruption are promoted by allowing inhabitants to choose freely among candidates acceptable to CCP. However, Beijing is still fundamentally an authoritarian state that contrasts with the liberal democratic foundations of the EU. With regard to the security field, the strategic outlooks of the EU and China present many commonalities. Their multilateral strategies are similar in their focus on stability prevention through dialogue and partnership. They also agree that the UN should be at the centre of global security management, and that persuasion and dialogue are preferable to resort other force. Nevertheless, because, for the EU, security is linked to the other global public goods (GPG)*, actual cooperation remains problematic, in spite of the similarities (Volgy pg, 90). This is well demonstrated by challenges posted by the newly established Peace Building Commission (PBC), an area in which cooperation is actually vital for success. China, France and the UK as Permanent Members of the United Nations Security Council and the European Commission as the world’s third donor are among the core members of the PBC’s standard Organizational Committee (Volgy pg, 90). In the immediate post-conflict phase, the PBC is to bring around the table all relevant actors for a given country, in all relevant areas, to create a platform for consultation and coordination. For the EU and China, a strategic partnership reflects the ongoing development of their bilateral relations, which are both deepening and widening. The mechanism for political dialogue now compromise: annual summits at the level of heads of state and government; one or two Troika Ministerial per year; meetings during each EU Presidency of Political Directors, of Regional Directors, and of EU Heads of Mission in Beijing with the Chinese Foreign Minister, and of the Chinese Ambassador in the Presidency capital with the President of the General Affairs and External Relations Council; and regular meetings at the level of experts and high officials(Deng pg,90). In Addition to these meetings, a human rights dialogue and economic and sectored dialogues and agreements are also included. Foreign and security policy completes an integral part of the political dialogue and global governance issues now routinely figure on the agenda of bilateral meetings, e.g. climate change, UN reform, terrorism’, as stated in April 2005 stock tacking exercise by the Commission and as called for in the 2003 Commission Communication (Volgy pg,112). One concrete result has been the Joint Declaration of the People’s Republic of China and the EU on Non-Proliferation and Arms Control (8 December 2004), in which the two recognize each other as strategic partners in the area of disarmament and non-proliferation, and which has already been followed by the joint workshop on non-proliferation(Volgy pg,112). In the area of arms control and non-proliferation, the EU and China agree that wide-scale nuclear proliferation would encourage an arms race that might prompt Europe and China to switch additional resources out of civil economy into increased military expenditure and to de-emphasize the role of multilateral conflict resolution as a principal means of global security management (Volgy pg, 112). Progress has thus certainly been made, but, for a true strategic partnership to be established, more actual joint EU-China policy initiatives leading to policy adjustments and practical cooperation must be undertaken on the basis of the political dialogue, something that the 2003 Communication also called for (Shambaugh pg, 154). This involves presenting the interests and principles of both parties in order to promote mutual understanding and hopefully a gradual coordination of approaches. China’s EU Policy Paper proposes the arrangement of a strategic security consultation, a point repeated in the April 2005 stocktaking exercise by the Commission (Volgy pg, 112). In this framework, all security-related topics could be discussed, including non-proliferation, terrorism, UN operations and the PBC. The EU-China strategic dialogue has only just started. It is indeed an independent operation, a road to travel, a pathway in the international system, with uncertain divisions and indeed, uncertainly over end destinations still raising their heads. The actual process of dialogue promises to some extent to shape the end destinations and decisions by actors further along the road (Edmonds pg.31). International relations theory offers varied scenarios here. The stress by realism on state sovereignty and the inherit power struggles in the anarchic jungle of the international system can be combined with power transition theory to suggest worrying times ahead in China’s rise and EU-China divergence. Yet classic balance might suggest that the EU and China should act together, as agents of multipolarity (Crossick, pg 43). Here it can be suggested that China’s great power aspirations may perhaps encourage similar EU aspirations for international power and prestige. Still, if liberalism-functionalism has any credence, then EU multilateralism may also be encouraging multilateralism trends in China. A mechanical international system may give way to an international society (Barysch pg, 75). As for the strategic dialogue meeting in December 2005, despite the sparse detail surrounding its contests and conclusions, there is a sense of it settling down as part of the ongoing, the increment process at play between China and the EU (Shambaugh pg, 154). It was not the first strategic dialogue meeting between the two actors, but not the least one. It is also feeding into other EU-China process. Consequently, it was announced in February 2006 that the EU-China (foreign ministers’) Troika will build on the work of the first EU-China strategic dialogue, which was held in London in December 2005, and Commissioner Ferrero-Waldner will make clear her confidence in the developing partnership. The multi-layer EU-China links continue to move forward (Deng pg, 102). The EU and China have established an extensive political dialogue, which includes foreign and security policy, notably in the context of what the EU refers as effective multilateralism. The foundation of this politico-military dialogue is a commonality of views on the world order, in particular on the need for a rule-based multilateral order and the role of the UN (Deng pg, 102). Yet significant differences continue to exist, most importantly with regard to human rights and democracy, which render China’s unqualified support for the holistic approach advocated by the EU difficult. As a result, the EU and China have not been able to translate the dialogue into comprehensive cooperation and regular joint initiatives yet (Shambaugh pg, 154). A true strategic partnership has not been established because the EU and China have not been able to move beyond the stage of dialogue. If they succeed in the exercise of coordination and can build a fully-fledged strategic partnership, the effectiveness of their policies will be greatly enhanced. However, the prospects of that happening are not very encouraging. A major limitation in EU-China cooperation is that Chinese multilateralism remains experimental. Although rhetorically the Chinese government is committed to multilateralism, in practice it entertains second thoughts because the basic dynamic of the international environment seems to remain power politics, as indicated by China’s Africa policy. In contrast, the EU as a predominantly civilian power relies heavily on economic and diplomatic means for influence in the international system. Beijing sees a strong national defense and continued authoritarian rule as necessary to maintain domestic stability and to protect China against future aggression from foreign powers such as the United States and Japan, should they prove unwilling to accommodate Chinese demands and interests in a future global order (Deng pg, 102). The EU’s multilateralism is one of its defining characteristics, which allows it to present itself as the prototype of how economic and political power can be used to claim global influence without relying on military capabilities. This idea of power may appeal to contemporary China because it helps Beijing convince the international community that China’s has no interest in promoting a Sino centric order, and that China’s rise will be accompanied by a continued focus on the common interest of states in peace and stability (Shambaugh pg, 154). However, when viewed on continued global dominance of the more China-skeptical USA, and because in the end the USA is the most important in China’s strategic calculations, Chinese multilateralism remains experimental. It is therefore yet not a reliable basis for long-term EU policy planning toward China. The EU’s focus on dialogue rather than joint initiatives reflects a prevailing need to push for China to clarify its foreign policy priorities before much practical EU-China cooperation can be considered. Ultimately, if China does not sincerely play by the multilateral rules and contribute to their implementation, it will play into the hands of the unilateralists that it dreads so much. Sources: Barysch, Katinka, Charles Grant, and Mark Leonard. Embracing the Dragon : The EU's Partnership with China. Budapest: Centre for European Reform (CER), 2005. Crossick, Stanley, and Etienne Reuter, eds. China-EU: A Common Future. Boston: World Scientific Company, Incorporated, 2008. Deng, Yong. China's Struggle for Status: The Realignment of International Relations. New York: Cambridge UP, 2008. Edmonds, Richard Louis, ed. China and Europe Since 1978: A European Perspective. New York: Cambridge UP, 2002. Shambaugh, David, Zhou Hong, and Eberhard Sandschneider, eds. The China and Europe Engagement. New York: Routledge, 2007 Shi Wei, Intellectual Property in Global Trading System. New York: Springer London, Limited, 2008. Volgy, Thomas J., and Alison Bailing. International Politics and State Strength. New York: Lynne Rienner, Incorporated, 2002.