Op-Ed Contributors

How to meet a challenge called EU

By Zhang Pei (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-03-19 08:01

Editor's note: The author offers a profound analysis on the obstacles that hinder the improvement of EU-China relationship, and the countermeasures China should implement.

Relations between China and the European Union (EU) have gone through some ups and downs in recent years. The first signs of discord emerged in 2006, when the European Commission issued its new policy document, which said China was a growing challenge and competitor rather than a partner that offered many opportunities. That apart, the document said, China should shoulder more global and regional responsibilities because it had benefited the most from globalization.

The EU action was not restricted to its tough stance on trade and global issues. It criticized China's legal system, human rights record and the way it handled the Tibet issue, too, all of which are the country's internal matters that no foreign power has the right to interfere with.

So why have EU-China relations soured and how can they be improved?

Roughly speaking, there are three schools of thoughts on this. The first blames the differences in ideology, values, social systems and development models for the problems. The second attributes the problems to the Europeans' disappointment at losing their traditional hold in international matters because of China's emergence as a global power. And the third blames economic frictions, saying severe trade imbalance between China and the EU is at the root of the disputes.

Though all the above reasons sound reasonable, they may not be that helpful in solving the problems. If ideological differences are at the root of the problems, how come Sino-EU ties enjoyed a smooth sailing for years? The power-shift argument will not lead to any solution either, because the reshaping of global power map is an irreversible trend. Besides, China's rise may not encumber political relations.

For a deeper analysis of the disputes between the two sides, one has to study the multilayered and complicated interaction between China as a sovereign country and the EU as a union of sovereign countries.

The EU has long been held as a model of supra-nationalism that fades the borders of traditional sovereign states. But the fact is the EU's basic characteristic as a union of sovereign states has not changed even after the Lisbon Treaty took effect last December. The EU cannot avoid internal differences, given its member countries' diverse history, cultures, social systems and development modes. These differences may make member states expect different things from the EU's integration and common foreign policy.

Power struggles rather than agreements among EU members were the order of the day during the tortuous process of the signing of the Lisbon Treaty - the compromising simplification of its content, and the procedures to elect the European Council president and the high representative of the common foreign and security policies.

One expects such a super-state union to strengthen national interests among its members, but the opposite seems to have happened. As a result, we see a "double track system" in the EU's foreign policymaking: Political and security policies are based on foreign policies of member states and the interests of the union as a whole takes a backseat.

This has created a big problem for China. Though Beijing has studied the differences among EU members closely, it hasn't found a balanced way of developing relations with the union as well as its member states. At times, Beijing has encountered resistance from some of the EU member states even after the union had agreed on ways to strengthen bilateral economic relations. As recent years' experience show, a number of Sino-EU disputes have been triggered by setbacks in relations between China and one or more of the EU member states.

To strengthen bilateral relations with the EU, China needs to study its member states more deeply. First, it has to study and establish closer ties with EU heavyweights such as the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy and Spain, which play a leading role in the union's policymaking.

After that, China has to shift its focus to smaller EU member states. But it has to treat these countries as heavyweights, too, because as EU members they can exercise enough influence to accept or reject a deal or a proposal. It has to understand that the smaller EU states have become as important as their larger counterparts. In fact, at times they wield more power than the heavyweights.

And lastly, China has to strengthen ties with European countries that could become EU members. This is important because after getting EU membership these countries can play a very important role in improving relations China and the union.

The problem for China is complicated, and it faces a big challenge in balancing its efforts to develop multilateral relations with the EU and bilateral relations with its member states. But for now, China should focus on strengthening bilateral relations with EU member states so that Sino-EU ties can be built anew on a stronger base with fewer disagreements.

The author is a research scholar with the Shanghai Institute for International Studies. The article first appeared in the Journal of Chinese Social Sciences.

(China Daily 03/19/2010 page9)