Migración y Derechos Humanos

Relations between Europe and China have never been so broad, yet it has also been a long time since they were so tense. On the one hand, there has been a continuation of new initiatives in the partnership: two-way

investments have continued to grow; European companies transferred back record volumes of investment incomes from China; trade continued to surge and most European member states expect that this trend will be maintained in the coming years; cooperation advanced in the field of research and development; and European companies upheld their position as China’s main providers of advanced technology and transferred important know-how through exports, investments and joint-ventures. There has been a

proliferation of joint research projects and Chinese actors became prominent participants in programs under Europe’s seventh research

framework. At the official level, a record number of technical dialogues were already reached in 2006, and the quantity of such exchanges has continued to grow. In 2011 and 2012, new ambitious projects were launched to foster peer-to-peer, SME and youth exchanges. It is no exaggeration to say that the partnership with China has become the most comprehensive and institutionalised of all the European Union’s partnerships.

On the other hand, relations have become increasingly tainted by tensions, disappointment and frustration. Both sides have invested a great deal in public diplomacy but mutual perceptions have reached a new low. While the splurge of negative reporting around the Beijing Olympics—focussed on issues ranging from Tibet to poisoned toys and air pollution—subsided, European news media continued to be highly critical of China’s evolution. The tone of Chinese news reports about Europe also became more negative, with a lot of emphasis being put on the latter’s suspected protectionist preferences and the consequences on China’s domestic stability of the EU’s inability to tackle the euro-zone crisis. The European policy community, including both member states and European Union officials, largely came to share the position that China had become more assertive as an international actor. Many officials observe a more confident and uncompromising attitude in encounters with their Chinese counterparts.

They also show concern that China’s posturing on territorial disputes in Asia is indirectly threatening Europe’s security and that growing Chinese

nationalism poses a major challenge to global stability. Chinese officials for their part criticise Europe for being unable to act coherently, in spite of the Lisbon Reform Treaty; they also complain that the European institutions have been unable and unwilling to respond constructively to an invitation to set a series of clear priorities for 2020.

Relations have deteriorated most with regards to the economy. Symbolising the souring relations are two major anti-dumping procedures initiated by the European Commission: one against Chinese producers of photovoltaic systems after a complaint from European firms, one against ZTE and

Huawei at its own initiative (the so-called ex officio procedure). The Chinese side had clearly assumed that it could deflect these procedures by

pressuring certain member states to discourage the Trade Commissioner and threatening with repercussions during the high-level economic dialogue. The two cases clearly reflect, on the one hand, that the European

Commission has grown impatient with the pace of economic reforms in China, and that it feels increasingly supported by the member states in addressing allegedly unfair competition. Even if it has a mandate to decide on anti-dumping procedures, such a mandate remains politically significant. The two cases were started after several years of criticism by European companies and the Europe-China Chamber of Commerce about the deteriorating business climate in China and excessive trade support. They also followed a steep deterioration of the official exchanges relying on the High-Level Economic Dialogue (HED) and the stand-still of negotiations of several economic chapters in the framework of the Partnership and

Cooperation Agreement (PCA). Disappointment, however, has not been confined to the European side. Since 2010, a growing chorus of Chinese diplomats came to lament Europe’s unreasonable demands, typically stating that during the HED China only asked “for a few reforms”—pertaining to the visa regime, investments and technology transfer—and that the European side tabled an unrealistically long list of demands. Furthermore, Chinese officials became more and more convinced that the economic troubles in Europe were causing more protectionism.

This more complicated situation has led China to make several new overtures. Whatever their personal disillusionment, Chinese decision- makers understand that a derailment of relations with Europe would be detrimental in light of its tensions with the United States and other Asian regional powers. The top leadership has instructed the Chinese participants in the HED to remain committed. It has also instructed different departments

to cooperate with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to support new exchanges, like the ones addressing clean energy and urbanisation. At the same time, more efforts were invested to keep Germany in the pro-China camp, as well as to curry favour with Central and Eastern European member states using bilateral diplomacy and a regional US$10 billion credit facility. It is clear that China came to regard the latter constituency as particularly relevant in influencing the agenda of the EU, even in comparison with the

Mediterranean countries, where many observers assumed it would use debt purchases to gain political leverage. By and large, however, China has not used the debt option decisively to gain influence among the Mediterranean member states. The response on the European side has been inconsistent: it sought to make EU-China ties more productive at the level of high politics, but largely followed the position of the United States on China’s role in Asian maritime security. An initiative to define the significance of the EU’s strategic partnerships failed.