EU-China relations in challenging times

Following the 1975 establishment of diplomatic relations with China, the European Economic Community (EEC) focused its strategic approach – in line with its competences at the time – on support for China's economic opening, launched in 1978 by Deng Xiaoping. While this approach resulted in a swiftly expanding trade and investment relationship, results in other areas are rather mixed. By most accounts, the strategy also failed to contribute to making significant progress on the rule of law in China and there were no visible results of the EU's human rights engagement. Given that, at the beginning of Deng's reforms, China was very poor, the EEC/European Union (EU) de facto agreed to an arrangement for special and differential treatment, linked to China's status as a developing country. However, with China having become an upper-middle income country and the bilateral trade relationship still characterised by considerable asymmetries, the existing lack of reciprocity in market access and of a level playing field in general have attracted increasing attention. At the same time, China has been regressing in terms of human rights. Furthermore, the country has become much more assertive in the regional context, is fast improving its (offensive) military capabilities and has started to engage in global disinformation campaigns and cyber-attacks. As a consequence, the EU has changed its strategic approach considerably, as exemplified by the 2019 Joint Communication, which proposed different legal instruments to ensure a level playing field in trade, and to fend off Chinese attempts to gain access to critical infrastructures. Relations with the European Parliament have deteriorated, pushing Parliament to put the comprehensive agreement on investment (CAI) – which had been agreed on 30 December 2020 – on ice.