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China and the EU: A Strategic Axis for the Twenty-First Century?
David Scott International Relations 2007 21: 23 DOI: 10.1177/0047117807073766 The online version of this article can be found at: http://ire.sagepub.com/content/21/1/23

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China and the EU: A Strategic Axis for the Twenty-First Century?
David Scott, Brunel University

Abstract
The EUChina relationship is now emerging as a signicant feature of the international system. The EUs institutional consolidation, development of supranational trade power and the foreign policy openings of the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) has entwined with the PRCs ongoing sense of geopolitical manoeuvrings between the superpowers. With its talk of multipolarity, grand strategy has converged, though the PRCs stress on multipolarity can perhaps be distinguished from the EUs stress on multilateralism. Nevertheless, human rights issues apart, the EUChina relationship has matured in the last two decades to involve signicant economic matters and visions of a wider strategic partnership, bringing with it a challenge to American unipolar unilateralism. Keywords: China, EU, globalization, multilateralism, multipolarity, strategy, unipolarity

Introduction In recent years a perhaps rather unexpected, yet signicant and generally positive, strategic relationship has emerged between the European Union (EU) and the Peoples Republic of China (PRC). Sweeping rhetoric can now be heard: The EU China Relationship: A Key to the 21st Century Order.1 Yet, as late as September 2004, Shambaugh considered the EUChina convergence as one of the most important yet least appreciated developments in world affairs in recent years.2 Economics and politics intertwine amidst grand strategy, that underpinning aspect of foreign policy.3 Strategic is a nebulous but key term.4 It can be understood as involving deliberate longer-term policy, here with regard to external relations, which has been judged of importance for the gaining of overall or long-term ... advantage (OED) to advance the interests and shape the paths for the twenty-rst century. As such, strategic calculations have been clearly involved for both the EU and the PRC vis--vis themselves and each other. Both sides have, since 2003, used the phrase strategic partnership to describe where they are going: a more controversial phrase open to question, a phrase suggesting recognizable convergence, collaboration and coordination, generally shared perceptions and/or interests. The EUChina relationship does, however, involve two very different types of international actors, with different political frameworks and value systems. In one corner, the PRC state, hitherto hyper-sensitive over maintaining its sovereignty in a world often seen as hostile to its very existence; on the other hand, the EU, an evolving

International Relations Copyright 2007 SAGE Publications Los Angeles, London, New Delhi and Singapore, Vol 21(1): 2345 Downloaded from ire.sagepub.com at Alexandru Ioan Cuza on December 20, 2011 [DOI: 10.1177/0047117807073766]

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international organization which has various supranational and intergovernmental features. Two actors, structurally very different, faced with a uid world order. The interaction is there, and has become signicant, but it is not an interaction of like with like, structurally and perhaps ideationally. Nevertheless, as already noted, the term strategic partnership was being used by 2003. This article therefore looks at two main features, rstly the current nature of the strategic relationship, and secondly their respective underpinning geopolitical visions and grand strategy. Involved in all this is the presence and role of language, the semiotics of international relations.5

(1) The current strategic partnership The year 2003 was when that earlier talk of political dialogue, the language of the preceding 2001 and 2002 summits, was replaced by increasing talk of a strategic relationship and indeed a strategic partnership. By this time, the limited EUChina trade agreement in 1985 had been overtaken by wider trends in the 1990s.6 On the one hand was greater geopolitical awareness in the EU of its own potential, with moves towards a Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) announced in 1992 with the Treaty of Maastricht, and strengthened in 1997 (by the Treaty of Amsterdam). For Javier Solana, the CFSP High Representative, the point of the CFSP was simple: my aim, at the head of this adventure, was to promote the Union as a global political player, capable of mobilising all the resources available economic, commercial, humanitarian, diplomatic, and of course military to act in a coherent and above all effective manner over the whole of its international environment.7 The EU Commission had already started political dialogue with China in 1994, and had hammered out denitive strategy in A Long Term Policy for ChinaEurope Relations (1995) and Building a Comprehensive Relationship with China (1998). On the other hand was a China actively looking for economic transfusion from the West amidst its dramatic economic surge, but also trying to bring about a more multipolar balance of power in the international system, which involved a search for other poles that could help it balance against an emerging American pre-eminence. Consequently, the Eighth EUChina Summit (30 October 2003) noted the increasing maturity and growing strategic nature of the partnership.8 The 2003 Summit also recorded that Leaders welcomed the recent issuing of policy papers on ChinaEU relations by both sides, the dynamic progress of their relationship and stressed their resolve to further expand and deepen ChinaEU relations, guided by the two policy papers, which promote the development of an overall strategic partnership between China and the EU.9 The two policy papers in question were the EUs A Maturing Partnership: Shared Interests and Challenges in EUChina Relations and the PRCs Chinas EU Policy Paper, released during the

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autumn of 2003, in a delicate minuet in which each sides drafting was carried out in awareness and with explicit reference to the others composition. In a small way they represent an interesting and unusual example of policy formulation coordination between international actors. They virtually became joint documents, or certainly ones that were explicitly judged as compatible and convergent. They set the scene for the strategic partnership. The EUs A Maturing Partnership (September 2003) dealt with the relationship at two levels. At one level were immediate issues, the striking growth in bilateral trade as well as serious differences over human rights.10 At another level it emphasized grand strategy where: China is one of the EUs major strategic partners ... Chinas geopolitical vision of a multipolar world, and the Chinese perception of the EU as a partner of growing importance, also provide a favourable context ... the EU as a global player on the international scene, shares Chinas concerns for a more balanced international order.11 From the Chinese side, their rst ever EU White Paper, Chinas EU Policy Paper (October 2003), also acknowledged differences over human rights, but looked at wider-ranging geopolitical areas. The EUs edgling military steps were reected in Chinas talk of a military aspect (section V) of their relationship where China and the EU will maintain high-level military-to-military exchanges, develop and improve, step by step, a strategic security consultation mechanism.12 Basic grand strategy was also discernible, amidst familiar signposts, where the trend towards world multipolarity and economic globalization is developing amid twists and turns ... and is an irreversible trend of history.13 Whereas the EU could emphasize internal (human rights) democracy, China stressed that countries should externally respect diversity in the world and promote democracy in international relations, i.e. multipolarity and a veiled rebuttal of American unilateralism and hegemonism in the wake of 9/11.14 China acknowledged that the European Union (EU) is a major force in the world ... the European integration process is irreversible and the EU will play an increasingly important role in both regional and international affairs.15 With ChinaEU consultation and co-ordination on major international and regional hotspot issues ... ChinaEU relations are now better than at any time in history.16 Strategic convergence was the order of the day in these two documents, encouraging the EUChina Summit talk of an emerging strategic partnership. Certainly the rhetoric of inside participants and outside observers has ourished. The 2004 EUChina Summit was greeted with EU talk of their maturing strategic partnership.17 There is no missing the outwardly warm style of EUChina relations. Chinas Love Affair with Europe (The Far Eastern Economic Review, 12 February 2004) was matched by Shambaughs prole (September 2004) of the dramatic development of EuropeanChinese relations, a euphoric China fever that is gripping Europe, amidst a prolonged honeymoon and booming interaction.18 The 2005 EUChina Summit had leaders talking of a progressive deepening of the relationship, which is fast maturing into a comprehensive strategic partnership.19

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Having proclaimed a strategic partnership as something that they were establishing, what did and does that term actually mean for the participants? Does common rhetoric mask different assumptions? Is Berkofsky right to see the phrase strategic relationship as rather empty misleading diplomatic niceties that mask a lack of common visions of multilateralism or global governance.20 How far does such (euphemistic?) language mask continuing uncertainty or unease over Chinas longer-term intentions? Is strategic partnership something to establish (intent) or something to recognize (already present)? Are the strategic parameters specic and meaningful enough? Ofcial denitions of the term strategic partnership have come from both the EU and China. From the EU side comes Solana, fronting the EU CFSP pillar, and having piloted through the stronger European Defence Strategy at the 2003 EU Summit. Two years later, concerning the EUChina relationship, he felt that we really do have a partnership which is getting wider and deeper. Our goals are converging across a wide range of international subjects ... we are natural partners in many ways.21 For him why we call this a strategic partnership involved two strands.22 In terms of common challenges one reason to use the term was that: rst, the issues which we discuss and on which we push action forward are global strategic issues. Issues such as the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and international terrorism. Questions such as global security of energy supply, regional crises and the environment.23 Furthermore there were capabilities: second we are partners with signicant global strengths, capabilities and responsibilities. China is rapidly emerging as a world leader and positive actor on the global stage. We in the EU warmly welcome this.24 A slightly more detailed sense was given by the Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao (2005), on the: shared view of the two sides to work for a comprehensive strategic partnership. By comprehensive, it means that the cooperation should be all-dimensional, wideranging and multi-layered. It covers economic, scientic, technological, political and cultural elds, contains both bilateral and multilateral levels, and is conducted by both governments and non-governmental groups.25 The multifaceted nature was noticeable. He went on: by strategic, it means that the cooperation should be long-term and stable, bearing on the larger picture of ChinaEU relations. It transcends the differences in ideology and social system and is not subjected to the impacts of individual events that occur from time to time.26 Primary and secondary levels are thus distinguished. Finally, by partnership, it means that the cooperation should be equal-footed, mutually benecial and

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win-win, the opposite of zero-sum competition.27 Subsequently, Jos Barroso the current President of the EU Commission, went on record at the Seventh Annual Summit that: both Prime Minister Blair and myself ... fully agree with the denition of strategic relationship presented by Premier Wen, it means that we put the big picture in front of minor problems [Wens strategic levels?] that might appear precisely because the relationship is growing and developing and very fast in a very wide number of sectors.28 Yet how much actual cooperation and coordination is there on wider issues? Strong statements are evident from the EU side. As Solana put it (2004), China and the EU are both global powers, and we want to work alongside China in addressing key international issues.29 For the then EU Commission President Romano Prodi, relations between the EU and China were more than just business; it was a relationship in which the [European] Union and China increasingly exchange views and seek to coordinate their positions on international issues and global challenges ... we hope to further intensify and expand our policy coordination in this respect ... our relations had never been better.30 Wen Jiabaos ofcial trip to EU headquarters at Brussels attracted comments by Prodi that the EU and China have an ever-growing interest in working together as strategic partners ... in reinforcing their cooperation across the board.31 However, is it true that EUChina reality needs to catch up with political rhetoric vis--vis actual cooperation and collaboration?32 Does it reect the verbose ... whiffs of hot air seen in general EU Summit declarations of earlier years?33 Some explicit joint positions are apparent. The Seventh EUChina Summit (2004) saw the EUChina Joint Statement on Non-Proliferation and Arms Control, whilst the 2005 Summit saw the announcement of the EU-China Partnership on Climate Change. Both China and the EU have supported the Kyoto Protocols on the environment, again in contrast to the USA. In an age of pressing environmental challenges for the twentyrst century, this may be a particularly signicant convergent soft security issue. China is not really involved in European security issues, whilst the EU is of marginal importance in East Asian security affairs. Traditional diplomatic coordination between these two strategic partners has not always been noticeable. Iraq (1991) and Kosovo (1999) saw China and the EU more divided than united on the issues, whilst any EUChina coordination over Iraq in 2003 was negated by the EUs own deep internal splits and paralysis. However, rising tension around Iran has seen China and the EU converging towards diplomatic conciliatory approaches rather than the more interventionist American stance, an issue focused on at the 2004 Summit which recorded that both sides appreciated their respective efforts in facilitating a political resolution of the Iranian nuclear issue.34 For Solana (2005), the Iran issue was one where the EU and China have both expended considerable diplomatic effort to support what the other is doing. This has strengthened both our hands. This is strategic partnership in action.35 Iran featured in the EUChina strategic dialogue meeting in December 2005.

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Human rights remains an issue between the two sides, in the words of the West European Union Assembly (2005), given the rapid emergence of new world powers, such as China, with ideas on democracy, individual and collective freedoms and human rights that are still out of alignment with the norms the western world supports.36 The EU (2005) acknowledged that concern about human rights has been a major theme of EUChina relations since the Tiananmen Square crackdown in 1989.37 EUChina dialogue on human rights was initiated in January 1996. As the then head of the General Directorate for External Relations at the European Commission, Angelos Pangratis, noted: there have been some minor improvements ... but a challenge the EU does face is not to let the dialogue become an empty shell or diplomatic g leaf. We still strive for concrete results.38 However, away from the headlines of PRC treatment of dissidents and Tibet, the EU has been involved in lowkey human rights governance issues at the grass roots level since 1997. Typical was its Human Rights: Micro-Projects Programme. Armed with a budget of 435,000 euros, it was offering in spring 2005 to fund non-governmental and academic institutes in China involved in strengthening local civil society organizations, in particular organizations focusing on human rights; Raising police and law enforcement ofcials awareness of human rights and promoting the rights of detainees; Protecting the rights of national minorities.39 Indeed, the actual and potential effects of such EU approaches prompted Chinese analysts such as Huo Zhengde to warn that the ChinaEU relationship conicts in ideology and values still remain and that such EU programmes could be an attempt to Westernize and disintegrate China, needing Chinese counter-measures.40 However, human rights have to some extent been overshadowed, if not sidelined, by the imperatives of economics. The economic relationship between the EU and China has become signicant, with the EU as the worlds largest market and the PRC as the worlds most populous and fastest-growing economy. Trade reached 175 billion euros in 2004; by 2005 the EU had become Chinas biggest trading partner and China was the EUs second biggest trading partner. However, economic friction has also come along. Soaring exports led to a growing Chinese trade surplus with the EU over $4 billion in 1997. As the then Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy delicately put it in 2002, the Chinese trade numbers are startling ... our trade decit ... now stands at a rather substantial 45 billion euros on Eurostat gures in 2001, our largest single bilateral trade decit.41 By the time of the 2003 gures, our decit has widened to 55 billion euros, and is growing rather too healthily, though this is not yet a political concern, at least in comparison with the high level of concern in the US.42 EUROSTAT gures show an ever accelerating pattern for the EU. The EU trade decit with China rose to 78.9 billion euros (c. $100 million) in 2004. The next year saw the decit continue to grow in Chinas favour, rising to over 105 billion euros. The textiles exports/dumping furore, but eventual agreement in summer 2005, was one side of this competition competition not just for the China market but also for the Europe market. Here it is signicant that Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson

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made a point of embedding the technicalities of the textiles agreement (June 2005) into the wider EUChina strategic relationship.43 This reflected the official Memorandum of Understanding rationale for the agreement being in view of the comprehensive strategic partnership between the European Union (EU) and the Peoples Republic of China (PRC) and the development of their trade and economic ties, and with a view to provide the EU and Chinese textile industries with a stable and predictable trading environment, a revealing sequence going from the overall wider geopolitical setting to the more specic economic relationship to the immediate actual trade issue.44 A further are-up erupted in August over its implementation. Further agreement was reached at the Eighth EUChina Summit (September 2005), where the Chinese Commerce Minister Bo Xilai brought in the wider relationship, asserting the reason why China and Europe could swiftly achieve a rational solution ... should be, to a great extent, attributed to the all-round strategic partnership already established between the two sides.45 Spring 2006 saw renewed trade disputes over shoes and car spare parts with anti-dumping tariffs of 16.5 per cent imposed on Chinese shoes in September. One wonders how far such (primary-level) strategic partnership dynamics transcend and ameliorate such (secondary-level) friction. One sign of the all-round nature of their relationship has been the wideranging institutional links between the EU and China. However, evaluation of their institutional links vary. Some have argued that the very diversity of internal EU structures means EU relations towards China continue to lack coherence and at times international credibility, and that there is a present need for injecting some much-needed dynamism into the relatively compartmented and bureaucratized style of EU-China relations.46 Crossick et al. have mixed feelings on EUChina links. They feel that more order, consistency, coordination and an effective reporting system are all needed ... it is clear that the institutional structure and organisation need a thorough overhaul, but still recognize that a mutually constructive approach pervades.47 On the other hand, by 2002 Algieri already reckoned that EUChina relations have reached a highly institutionalized and inter woven level of cooperation.48 Shambaugh considered it a comprehensive and multidimensional relationship, where the breadth and depth are impressive giving a high level of interaction.49 CSIS director Robin Niblett told the USChina Economic and Security Review Commission that there was a plethora of EUChina links, showing: the level of comfort that negotiators in China and the EU appear to have in such a multi-layered agenda. Chinas decentralized and incrementalist system of government appears to mesh well with the EUs own decentralized and consensual forms of internal coordination.50 Both actors seem happy enough with their level of contact. The 2003 EUChina Annual Summit explicitly noted the multi-layered structure of ChinaEU relations.51 For Solana, the intensity of this high level [EUChina] interaction is almost without

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parallel among our other partners.52 Similarly, President of the EU Commission, Jos Barroso, describes how the current extent of EUChina relations is truly impressive, with its dense network of contacts ... multiple networks and exchanges.53 Elsewhere it was a question for him of highlighting EUChina links as our increasingly multi-layered relationship.54 From the PRC side, Deputy Foreign Minister Zhang Yesui also approvingly referred to the multiple levels and frequent exchanges between EU and Chinese gures.55 Until the triple-pillar nature of the EUs current structure changes, such diversity of links seems inevitable, but not necessarily at the expense of an effective, indeed deepening and comprehensive, relationship. The EUs own sui generis identity and organizational structure (neither unitary, federal nor intergovernmental) makes tight, tidy expectations unrealistic. Nevertheless, this cumulative ever-increasing web of ChinaEU links seems impressive enough: Pan Zhenqiangs EUChina working network.56 As of April 2006, a glance at the EUChina institutional structure currently shows some 12 existing layers ranging from the Annual Summit, through ve ministerial levels, nine administrative levels and a swathe of 20 Sectoral agreements and dialogues, i.e. 35 different regular EUChina bilateral avenues.57 The last addition to this strand has been the setting up by the 2005 Summit of a strategic dialogue mechanism, to be conducted at vice-ministerial level twice a year. The rst meeting took place on 22 December 2005, a further one in June 2006.58 This raises the question of what wider geopolitical visions actually underpin EUChina institutional links. What are the EU and the PRC bringing to any strategic dialogue? If the longer-term strategic view is to be looked at, then what are their longer-term hopes and fears concerning each other? Is the relationship based on shared values, if not with regard to domestic politics then at least with regard to international politics?

Geopolitical visions and grand strategy It was no coincidence that at their inaugural strategic dialogue meeting in December 2005 both sides conducted in-depth discussions from a macroscopic and strategic perspective on their respective role in the international system.59 Both actors are aware of their size (population, territory) and resources, the prerequisites for grand strategy hopes. Both actors are in an international system hitherto dominated by others; as Pangratis put it, both the EU and China are, to some extent, still looking for their rightful place in the world.60 Both the EU and China have recognized themselves and the other as important rising powers for the twenty-rst century and therefore not to be ignored. Thus, for the then EU Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy, in terms of the future development of the world economy and indeed international relations ... EUChina relations will ... be pivotal to the century which has just begun.61 From the Chinese side, Wang Guoqiang felt both China and the EU ought to be the key components of the current

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and upcoming international strategic structure.62 Major General Pan Zhenqiangs commentary on the 2004 EUChina Summit was that: as two truly rising strategic forces in the world today, both China and Europe must be increasingly aware of the growing importance of the other side in the international arena, and the signicance of ... mutual support in their policies in order to better protect their own vital interests.63 Huo Zhengde (2005) sees China and the EU, as two rising forces ... in the international system ... a new balancing force of the world ... China and the EU will become a new axis in international affairs.64 His use of the word axis is striking. From the EU side, there has been great awareness of Chinas signicance for the international system. The big picture was, for Pangratis: a formidably dynamic Chinese Dragon, who will inescapably be one of the major players on the world scene during the 21st century ... the challenge of developing a comprehensive robust and enduring relationship with China, is one of the great geo-strategic challenges for the 21st century.65 Elsewhere in the EU, Lamy, reflecting IR realism, felt that I am convinced that the geopolitical shifts in the century ahead will see China playing an increasingly pivotal global role. So I know that it is worth investing heavily in building a good relationship with China.66 Chinas size continued to impress, Solana arguing in January 2006 for grander horizons, that with new centres of power, we are moving to a system of continents ... in Washington today and Beijing tomorrow, alongside which the EU could and should stand.67 Certainly, as the EU has got bigger, most dramatically from 15 to 25 member states in 2004, it has become more interested in its role in the international system. As of 2006, the EUs population of 462 million is well above that of Japan (128), Russia (144) and the USA (299), though less than Chinas still bigger 1314 billion. In territory, the EUs 3976 square kilometres is a substantial size stretching across the European continent. Within the EU the implications of this have been recognized; for its Commissioner for Enlargement, Olli Rehn, the European Union of 450 million people is a strong global player by virtue of that demographic weight.68 Brczs EU as a Geopolitical Animal was indeed How Size Matters.69 Such a coupling was applicable to China in turn. Romano Prodi told the Chinese Premier, Wen Jiabao, that their geopolitical context was one where not only was China becoming a more and more global player but also with the new Enlargement, the EUs inuence is assuming new dimensions at home and abroad.70 Consequently, and directly, in this context, I believe the EU and China have an ever-growing interest in working together as strategic partners ... in reinforcing their cooperation across the board.71 In Jacques Chiracs words, in this multipolar world, only the European Union has the critical size to establish a dialogue on an equal footing with its major partners such as China.72 The EU Commissioner for External Relations, Benita Ferrero-Waldner,

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cited how the Chinese ambassador in Brussels recently described the creation and success of the European project as one of those events which happen in the world only every four or ve hundred years ... the widening of the Union thanks to enlargement ... building a secure and economically strong Europe and playing a leading role in world affairs.73 Alongside its territorial growth, through enlargement, has come the development of the EUs foreign policy capacity, and with it a nascent security-cum-military capability. As Jos Barroso told Wen Jiabao: we now have a Common Foreign and Security Policy, including a Security and Defence Policy. These developments not only strengthen the role of the European Union as a global player, but also make it a more important partner for China across the board.74 The CFSPs High Representative, Javier Solana, points to: a paradox: of all the prerogatives of states, security and defence policy is probably the one which least lends itself to a collective European approach; however after the single currency, it is in this dimension that the Union has made the most rapid and spectacular progress over the last ve years [from 1999 to 2004].75 His enthusiasm remains keen, telling the European Security and Defence College (ESDC) in 2006 that the story of ESDP is very exciting. This is the [Solanas underlining] area where the EU has made most progress in recent years.76 One sign of the EUs strategic recognition of Chinas weight alongside its own aspirations had been in the European Security Strategy with its recommendation to develop strategic partnerships with ... China.77 This report had been drafted by Solana during 2003. It was signicant that the Sixth EUChina Summit (October 2003) ofcially also noted the draft European Security Strategy Paper ... in which China features as a key partner for the EUs strategic security relationships.78 For Solana, the [European Security] strategy is in a way, the European Unions strategic identity card [as] a global security player.79 In his eyes, it showed ever-widening longer-term strategic hopes and power claims by the EU: a stronger Europe with a common strategic vision is also a Europe capable of consolidating relationships with the other great partners such as China, as a pillar of the organisation of the new world.80 The European Security Strategy was formally adopted at the EU Helsinki Summit in December 2003. In the light of such statements, Peels dismissal of any long-term EU vision that there is no [EU] Grand Plan towards China, at least not in the US sense of geopolitical strategy, with the EU merely trying to do business and reacting to events is erroneous.81 He underestimates the degree to which strategic hopes underpin EU initiatives. The EU, for Barroso, looks to play a constructive role in managing the structural changes in the global order, together with our international

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partners in which the European Union is undoubtedly a global player ... forging strategic partnerships with ... China with whom we will substantially deepen our political and commercial relations.82 What is signicant is that commercial was preceded by political, i.e. ultimately strategic. The strategic, i.e. long-term, nature of EUChina relations has also become regularly recognized from the Chinese side. As the Foreign Ministry put it, the Chinese government has always been viewing and developing ChinaEU relations from a strategic perspective and ChinaEU relations occupy an important position in Chinas foreign policy.83 Here a recurrent theme for Chinese strategists has been to foster a multipolar balance-of-power situation, to safeguard its position and interests within an international system dominated in the post-Cold War period by American preeminence. Such power relations underpinned Chinese talk in 1999 of the PRC and the EU being two of ve great powers, amidst the increasing multi-polarization trend of the present times, which has especially been sponsored by China.84 PRC gures have been explicit enough. Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan (1999) agreed that China and the European countries and the EU have become important trading partners, but pointed out what is more important, politically and internationally, [is that] China and the EU ... both ... believe that in todays world, there is an accelerated movement towards multi-polarity.85 Jiang Zemin considered the 1998 EUChina mechanism as facilitating a long-term and stable ChinaEU constructive partnership in which world multipolarization is an inevitable trend.86 The Peoples Dailys (2004) prole of EUChina economic links was buttressed by geopolitical vision, i.e. China has always [?] been positive about European integration, because it believes a stronger EU will be a signicant player on a multipolar world scene.87 Major General Pan Zhenqiang, commenting on the 2004 EUChina Summit, saw: European integration further moving ahead as one of the positive signs that the world is moving towards healthy multipolarity ... in Chinas perspective, the strengthened ties between the two sides will be an integral part of a multipolar world in the future.88 EU enlargement was no threat to China; instead it could be welcomed in Beijing, since: the accession of ten Eastern, Central and Southern Europe states helps promote the development of the global trend of world multipolarity ... faced with US pursuit for global hegemony ... EU and China have more common ground to balance the US power politics and unilateralism.89 Such sentiments point to the third player in the EUChina relationship, the United States. China has begun to affect the dynamics of the EUUS relationship. The Seventh EUChina Summit (December 2004) was seen by Weinstein as showing a signicant geostrategic ... tendency of regional power centers to deal directly with

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one another, apart from ... Washington.90 A logic remains clear for Huo Zhengde that the: accelerating rise of China and the EU and the deepening of their strategic relationship will facilitate the change of forces in the international system and help promote multipolarization and democratization of international relations ... in the past we opposed the Soviet Union hegemony, now we promote multilateralism to hold back US unilateralism.91 The pattern is clear enough for Watts that Beijing now identies with Europe as fellow travellers on the road to containment of American power ... a multipolar world with Beijing and Brussels looking to check American power.92 The PRC language over EUChina strategic convergence that both China and the EU advocate multilateralism, support the UNs core role in handling regional and international crises and propose to ght against terrorism in a way to eliminate the root of terror, rather than by force can be read as a Chinese retort to US unilateralism, and as an attempt by China to co-opt the EU alongside itself.93 EU governments may have been split over US intervention in Iraq, but there was still some apparent unease over Americas style, Solana welcoming Chinese comments that we saw too much unilateralism [from the USA] in 2003.94 The EUs approach to China has resulted in some distancing from the USA. Feng Zhongpings 2004 prole of EU enlargement in the Beijing Review looked for a realignment of the international system: the enlarged EU will strive for more say in the international arena with more condence, which may lead to more disputes and contradictions with the United States.95 As Niblett told the USChina Economic and Security Review Commission in 2005, there is little doubt that Chinas current leaders would like to draw Europe and the EU into a multipolar world order in which the transatlantic alliance would be weakened and in which Chinas ability to maneuver would be maximized.96 One strategic matter of discord between the US and the EU was reported, with some satisfaction, in the China Daily: [with] the EUs rapid progress toward military independence ... the EU is developing Galileo, its own satellite network, which will break the monopoly of the US global positioning satellite system. The participation of China in Europes Galileo project has alarmed the US military ... The US is being sidelined.97 Alongside the Galileo issue stands the whole question of the arms embargo rst placed on China by the EU (and the USA) in the wake of Tiananmen Square. As EUChina relations have improved, the PRC has been arguing that it is contradictory for China to be recognized as a strategic partner and yet to be formally embargoed.98 As the Peoples Daily noted with regard to the issue, mutual trust is the fundamental problem to be solved for both sides though there is all-round strategic partnership.99

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For Premier Wen Jiabao (2004) it was a legacy of the Cold War and political discrimination against China; for the China Daily the embargo was outdated.100 The EU failure to lift the ban in 2005 attracted Chinese criticism of EU hand-wringing again on the arms embargo ... EU common diplomacy is still weak ... the EU still has difculty distancing itself from the US in international affairs, a tacit admission that such distancing was desired by China.101 Sixteen years on from Tiananmen Square, EU leaders have been creeping towards lifting the ban, and a revocation widely expected in 2004/5 is likely to come by 2007/8. However, the issue has also become a source of disagreement between the EU and the USA: Shambaughs transatlantic drift, Bernsteins big strategic difference, Gill and Nibletts diverging paths.102 As such, whilst the lifting of the European arms embargo may only serve as a symbolic gesture, it presages greater geopolitical shifts, a strategic triangulation on the part of Europe.103 At a global level, there may now be something of a triangle emerging between the US, the EU and China.104 In 2005 Niblett briefed the USChina Economic and Security Review Commission on the effects of the deepening relationship between the European Union (EU) and China on the transatlantic alliance, where US policy makers must take into account a more triangular relationship with China within which the EU is an increasingly important player at the political and economic levels.105 Shambaugh emphasized the importance of this new strategic triangle: a shifting geopolitical global order, in which the interaction of the United States, China and the EU will be a dening feature of the international system, given that these three continental powers increasingly possess the bulk of global economic and military power as well as normative and political inuence.106 Thus China not only affects its own sides of the triangle, EUChina and USChina relations, but it also affects the dynamics of the remaining side of the triangle, the EUUS relationship. Triangulation can be conceived between the USA, the EU and China.107 Nevertheless, some strategic ambiguity if not divergence can be discerned between the EU and China. On the one hand, the EUs Commissioner for External Relations Benita Ferrero-Waldner argues that whilst Chinas economic dynamism and Europes enlargement and growing identity as a global player were unthinkable back in the 1970s, the modern reality of this friendship between two of the most inuential and fast changing actors on the world stage has meant that the level of joint action and mutual comprehension has seen a remarkable rise.108 Elsewhere she noted of the EU and China that as strategic partners acting together we are a powerful force ... as global players, China and the EU are obviously interested in the nature of global politics in the 21st century.109 So far, so good. However, some distinctions are maintained by her, with her noting that: some [i.e. PRC gures] have talked of building a multipolar world. For the EU, however, it is not the number of poles which counts, but rather the basis on which they operate. Our vision is a world governed by rules created and monitored by multilateral institutions ... for putting the world in good, multilateral order.110

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As such, we have a more noticeable orientation towards multilateralism rather than multipolarity on the part of the EU; towards a (IRs English School) view of international society with shared norms rather than a mechanistic international system complete with competing power centres; towards IR liberalism-functionalism rather than IR state sovereignty power politics realism. Similar shades can be seen with the West European Union Assembly: it seems clear that one of the fundamental aims of the European Security Strategy is to substitute an international order based on the balance of power by an international order based on a set of rules.111 However, the balance of power is precisely what Chinas state-focused sovereignty-emphasizing policy has been over the years. Nibletts sense is that EU leaders hope that engaging their Chinese counterparts in this web of consultations will help socialize China in the international system, and help foster international society.112 In such a vein Ferrero-Waldners discussion with Japanese politicians had her admitting, and in effect challenging the PRC, that there was still the need to encourage China to be a responsible member of the international community. We ... want China to embrace democracy and the rule of law and respect human rights.113 As such there is a strategic transformation agenda in EU circles towards China. On behalf of the European Parliament, Helmut Kohne has been particularly clear about this: let me rst make clear the overarching aim of EU policy toward China ... our general approach aims to help shape China into a fully integrated, responsible and predictable partner of the international community.114 Transformation of Chinas external behaviour was to go hand in hand with domestic transformation: from the EU perspective, the full integration of China within the world economy is a necessary precondition for giving further impetus to forces within China seeking to pursue further economic and social reform.115 Such reform was the precursor for Chinas political transformation; that to further pursue our own interest to support Chinas transition to an open society based upon the rule of law and respect for human rights, the EU has continually upgraded the political dialogue that it initially began with China in 1994.116 This may not be totally welcome to the PRC leadership. Meanwhile, Chinas inclination has been towards often stressing multipolarity rather than multilateralism, inclined to stress its rise as a great power in the international system rather than accepting outside norms within an international society, leaning towards IR state sovereignty power politics realism rather than IR liberalismfunctionalism. Yet it is this latter strand that EU gures such as Solana have stressed, i.e. Europe is a new form of power. A force for good around the world. A promoter of multilateralism, international law and justice.117 Chinas sensitivity over state sovereignty, and remaining legally unfettered by international organizations, could be regarded as a rather old form of power.118 Admittedly, EU sources were more than ready to see multilateralism at play in Chinas foreign policy in 2005. Solana stressed how multilateralism and respect for international law are fundamental tenets of the EUs foreign policy. And I know the same is true for China, whilst Commission President Barroso similarly asserted our shared belief in multilateralism.119 However, Chinese sources still preferred to talk of how Sino-EU cooperation in terms of politics and diplomacy is of vital importance for both and the cooperative basis between them is the common awareness of establishing a multi-polar world.120
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In general one can indeed see some mutual ambivalence at play between the EU sense of multipolarity and Chinas sense of multilateralism.121 This is not an absolute divide. EU sources have at times used multipolar language rather than multilateralism. Acharya sees the EU acting as an instrument of normative multipolarity.122 From lofty geopolitical heights, Lamy made the point in 2003 that unlike in the US there is a much lesser sense of geopolitical challenge to Europe from China ... because we are happy to see ... a greater diffusion of power, a more multi-polar world developing, phrasing very welcomed in PRC circles.123 Former French Prime Minister, Laurent Fabius, currently holds that only a resolute strategic partnership between Europe and China can indeed lead to what could be called a multipolar world.124 Chinese sources, especially more recently, have used multilateralism rather than multipolarity. Indeed Chinas entry into the WTO was with help from the EU.125 Nevertheless, the overall balance is that the EU tends to prefer and use the term multilateralism more than multipolarity, whereas the PRC tends to use the term multipolarity more than multilateralism. However, the more recent readiness of the PRC to use and evoke multilateralism could be used to argue that some degree of international socialization is setting in. IR realism and idealism frameworks can both be used to argue for EUChina convergence.126

Conclusions EUChina relations have evolved into substantive links, in which economic ties and grand strategy are discernible, evidently and explicitly in Chinas case and in a more halting implicit way from the EU. At one level has been their solid ever-growing bilateral economic relationship; at another level cooperation over socio-economic issues, as in the EUChina Partnership on Climate Change announced at the Eighth Annual Summit in September 2005. Meanwhile, at the larger global level remain hard power issues of security and unipolar American pre-eminence. There are underlying geopolitical undertones for China and to a degree from the EU, namely reining in the United States and engineering their own advancements onto the global stage. In 2002 Moller judged the gradual demise of the Soviet bloc slowly invalidated the basic strategic framework for EUChina relations. Subsequent attempts at building a new framework have thus far remained unconvincing.127 Yet one year later a strategic partnership was being unfurled between the EU and China. In effect, Mollers bipolar Cold War anti-Soviet logic has been replaced by a degree of common EUChina strategic concerns over overweening American power in a post-Cold War hegemonic system. As Barysch succinctly puts it, both [the EU and China] are suspicious of the US untrammelled power.128 American unilateralism could be reined in by multilateralism, American unipolar concentration of power by a more diffused multipolar distribution. Consequently, the Jamestown Foundation noted: the relationship between China and the EU is being driven inexorably by geopolitical forces even more than economic ones. Ever since the disintegration of the Soviet Union left the US as the worlds only superpower, China has been
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INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS 21(1) casting around for partners to check the excesses of American power ... the Chinese, like the Europeans, want to bring about a multipolar world with China and Europe as two of the poles.129

This has in retrospect been an underlying subtext and has reinserted a basic strategic framework. Such hopes are all to do with relative rise, and also relative decline, to evoke Paul Kennedys magisterial The Rise and Fall of Great Powers, where the two actors identied as on the rise were the EU and China. For the former, in its potential, the EEC clearly has the size, the wealth and the productive capacity of a Great Power, but is thereby dependent on how far the integration process carries on, in an ever-deepening Union as the Treaty of Rome rst famously laid down.130 This remains a key consideration in the EUs growing international role. As for China, its economic expansion ... if it can be kept up, promises to transform the country within a few decades, for which the Chinese leadership was evolving a grand strategy to enable great power rise altogether more coherent and forward-looking than that which prevails in Moscow, Washington or Tokyo, and where its realization is only a matter of time.131 Seventeen years on, one could well consider that time as all the closer.132 With a shrunken post-Soviet Russia still in decline, and a Japan constrained by limits of size, population and resources, the two continental-sized powers of the EU and China beckon as leading poles for the twenty-rst century alongside the United States. Three caveats must be inserted here. The rst caveat is that Chinas continuing political stability under Communist Party leadership is not necessarily certain. Chinas very opening up to outside economic forces could bring about regime collapse preceded by internal turmoil, as graphically argued in Gordon Changs The Coming Collapse of China (2002). The second caveat is that EU foreign policy cohesion is not always apparent. The Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) pillar in the EU is a problematic area, in part implemented through the looser rotating national presidencies of the European Council and in part through the Councils High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy, Javier Solana, appointed in 1999 and reappointed for another ve-year stint in 2004. There is ambiguous overlap with the area covered by the EU Commission, with its own Commissioner for External Relations (previously Patten and now Ferrero-Waldner).133 Henry Kissingers question is still particularly relevant in the sensitive domain of foreign affairs: If I want to ring Europe to discuss policy who do I ring? At the least, tighter EU coordination is needed. The severe divisions exposed within the EU over the Balkans during 19989 were undeniable. As Chris Patten, Commissioner for External Relations 20004, ruefully admitted, the crisis in the Balkans has taught us a bitter lesson ... Europes weakness was exposed as EU dependence on American military intervention was shown.134 For Solana: the Kosovo crisis has been a wake-up call for European leaders and European public opinion. It revealed the shortcomings of European national and collective

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military capabilities ... It was against this background that the Helsinki European Council took historic decisions on ESDP.135 There it undertook to provide and maintain 60,000 troops for humanitarian and rescue work, crisis management, peacekeeping and even peace making. For Patten, this is a great step forward ... Europes Common Foreign and Security Policy now has operational teeth ... Europe a new power pole, with CFSP making Europe a political heavy weight on the global scene.136 For Solana: the European Union already has considerable instruments of a credible foreign policy in the diplomatic, economic and trade areas. It now wants to be able to back these instruments, if and when necessary, with the ability to use force where its vital interests are at stake and to be able to respond more effectively to crises.137 Admittedly, American intervention in Iraq in 2003 saw the EU split and unable to take any meaningful EU position. As Patten noted in the British Parliament (12 March 2003) the CFSP still remained a loose mechanism, with him acutely conscious of its limitations in which mere inter-governmentalism is a recipe for weakness and mediocrity: for a European foreign policy of the lowest common denominator, shown in such a light by the sorry gure cut by the European Union over Iraq. There again, post-Iraq, some EU consensus seems to have re-emerged over ways forward, with the European Security Strategy drawn up by Solana and formally adopted at the EU Summit in December 2003. Since then, in December 2004, under its CFSP remit, some 7000 EUFOR European forces have replaced the NATO operation in Bosnia. Currently over ten EU security operations are in progress across three continents, including the Congo, Aceh and the Sudan. Solana was arguing in 2004 that European defence policy is not only in constant progression: it has now reached its threshold of irreversibility.138 The setting up of the European Security and Defence College (ESDC) in July 2005 was a further EU move into integrated military/security matters, a move noticed in China.139 A third caveat is that the EUs drive for closer post-enlargement integration received setbacks in adverse referendum results in France and the Netherlands during 2005, thereby blocking ratication of a new EU Constitution, including its elements concerning tighter foreign policy cohesion. Nevertheless, the internal imperatives for tightening up the EUs decision making process, and with it strengthening foreign policy cohesion, remain. Interestingly enough, Mandelson had already, whilst preparing to take ofce as EU Trade Commissioner, ruminated (October 2004) that: I see the changing power balance in the world, especially the rise of Asia and particularly China, as one of the most persuasive modern arguments for Europeans acting together through the EU to enhance our strength and inuence ... our need to engage with China may well be a driver for European integration in the future.140

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The likelihood is that further European integration will be renewed, again in a gradual rather than sudden big-bang way. In the meantime the slowdown of the EUs CFSP and Constitutional Treaty have prompted China not to weaken its parallel bilateral great power relations with leading European states, in particular France and Germany, with the call coming in China to beef them up.141 Nevertheless, the trend, structures and strategic designs continue to strengthen between the EU and China. The EU and China have the potential to shape a transition from a US hegemonic unipolar distribution of power to a multipolar system. Tony Blair, acting as the rotating chair of the Presidency of the European Union, could indeed tell President Hu Jintao at the Eighth Annual Summit (September 2005) that the strategic partnership between China and the European Union is of immense importance, not just in terms of trade and the economy, but also in terms of our cooperation in all the major political issues the world faces.142 Politic politeness was no doubt involved, yet this was more than rhetoric and reected some geopolitical reality. It was a tting enough recognition of a new relationship: Shambaughs emerging axis between the EU and China.143 EUChina links have become more than just a matter of trade and economics, important though they are. They are now of strategic political signicance for international order in the twenty-rst century.144

Notes
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 Alfredo Pastor and David Gossett, The EUChina Relationship: A Key to the 21st Century Order, ARI (Real Instituto Elcano de Estudios Internacionales y Estragicos), 142, 30 November 2005. David Shambaugh, China and Europe: The Emerging Axis, Current History, September 2004, pp. 2438, at p. 248. Paul Kennedy (ed.), Grand Strategies in War and Peace (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1991). Harry Yarger, Strategic Theory for the 21st Century, The Letort Papers, February 2006. Lydia Liu, The Clash of Empires. The Invention of China in Modern World Making (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004), ch. 1, The Semiotic Turn of International Relations, pp. 530 for nineteenth-century terms in play between the West and China. See David Scott, China and the EU: Strategic Convergence 19572003, forthcoming study. Javier Solana, Preface, in N. Gnesotto (ed.), EU Security and Defence Policy. The First Five Years (19992004) (Paris: Institute for Security Studies, 2004), pp. 510, at p. 6. Joint Press Statement of the 6th EUChina Summit, Beijing, 30 October 2003. Joint Press Statement of the 6th EUChina Summit. EU Commission, A Maturing Partnership. Shared Interests and Challenges in EUChina Relations, 10 September 2003, available at: http://europa.eu.int/comm/external_relations/china/com_03_533/ com_533_en.pdf, pp. 3, 6 (accessed 1 June 2006). EU Commission, A Maturing Partnership, pp. 3, 23, 6. Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Peoples Republic of China, Chinas EU Policy Paper, 13 October 2003, available at: http://www.fmprc.gov.cn/eng/wjb/zzjg/xos/dqzzywt/t27708.htm (accessed 1 June 2006). Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the PRC, Chinas EU Policy Paper. Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the PRC, Chinas EU Policy Paper. Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the PRC, Chinas EU Policy Paper. Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the PRC, Chinas EU Policy Paper. EU Commission, EUChina Summit: New Steps in a Growing Relationship, 6 December 2004, available at: http://europa.eu.int/comm/external_relations/china/summit_1204/ip04_1440.htm (accessed 1 June 2006). Shambaugh, China and Europe, p. 245.

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Joint Statement of the 8th EUChina Summit, 5 September 2005, available at: http://europa. eu.int/comm/external_relations/news/barroso/sp05_478.htm (accessed 1 June 2006). Axel Berkofsky, EUChina Relations Strategic Partnership or Partners of Convenience?, German Foreign Policy in Dialogue, 6.16, June 2005, pp. 1420 at p. 15. Javier Solana, Driving Forwards the EUChina Strategic Partnership, 6 September 2005, available at: http://ue.eu.int/ueDocs/cms_Data/docs/pressdata/en/discours/86125.pdf, pp. 1, 4 (accessed 1 June 2006). Solana, Driving Forwards the EUChina Strategic Partnership. Solana, Driving Forwards the EUChina Strategic Partnership. Solana, Driving Forwards the EUChina Strategic Partnership. Wen Jiabao, Vigorously Promoting Comprehensive Strategic Partnership Between China and the European Union, ChinaEU Investment and Trade Forum, 12 May 2005, available at: http://www. chinamission.be/eng/zt/t101949.htm (accessed 1 June 2006). Wen Jiabao, Vigorously Promoting Comprehensive Strategic Partnership. Wen Jiabao, Vigorously Promoting Comprehensive Strategic Partnership. Press Conference with Wen Jiabao and Barroso, 6 September 2005, available at: http://www. number10.gov.uk/output/Page8133.asp (accessed 1 June 2006). Javier Solana, The European Union and China: Strategic Partners, 17 March 2004, available at: http://ue.eu.int/ueDocs/CMS_Data/docs/pressdata/en/discours/79736.pdf (accessed 1 June 2006). Romano Prodi, Relations Between the EU and China: More than Just Business, 6 May 2004, available at: http://europa.eu.int/comm/external_relations/news/prodi/sp04_227.htm (accessed 1 June 2006). Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao Pays an Ofcial Visit to the European Institutions, available at: http://europa.eu.int/comm/external_relations/china/intro/ip04_595.htm (accessed 1 June 2006). Also Prodi Says EUChina Relations at a Historic High Point, Xinhua News Agency, 8 April 2004. Berkofsky, EUChina Relations, p. 14. Richard Vaughan, Post-war Integration in Europe (London: Edward Arnold, 1976), p. 169. Joint Statement of the 7th EUChina Summit, 8 December 2004, available at: http://europa. eu.int/comm/external_relations/china/docs/js_081204.pdf (accessed 1 June 2006). Solana, Driving Forwards the EUChina Strategic Partnership, p. 2. West European Union Assembly, Implementation of the European Security Strategy Reply to the Annual Report of the Council, 13 June 2005, available at: http://www.assemblee-ueo.org/en/ documents/sessions_ordinaires/rpt/2005/1896.html (accessed 1 June 2006). EU Commission, The EUs Relations with China, available at: http://europa.eu.int/comm/external_ relations/china/intro/index.htm (accessed 10 April 2006). Angelos Pangratis, The EU and China: Economic Giants, in K. Brodsgaard and K. Heurlin (eds), Chinas Place in Global Geopolitics: International, Regional and Domestic Challenges (New York: RoutledgeCurzon, 2002), pp. 708, at p. 75. P. Baker, Human Rights, Europe, and the Peoples Republic of China, China Quarterly, 169, March 2002, pp. 4563, negative assessment of EU dialogue to June 2000. Human Rights Micro-Projects Programme: Third Call for Proposal, EUChina News , April 2005, available at: http://www.delchn.cec.eu.int/newsletters/200504/004_en.htm (accessed 1 June 2006). Huo Zhengde, On the ChinaEU Strategic Relationship, 7 April 2005, Chinese Institute for International Studies (CIIS), available at: http://www.ciis.org.cn/item/5005-04-07/50919.htm (accessed 1 June 2006). Pascal Lamy, EUChina Trade Relations, Beijing, 17 October 2002, available at: http://europa. eu.int/comm/archives/commission_1999_2004/lamy/speeches_articles/spla128_en.htm (accessed 1 June 2006). Lamy, The EU, China and Trade: Challenges and Opportunities Ahead, Shanghai, 15 March 2004, available at: http://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/docs/2004/june/tradoc_116276.pdf (accessed 1 June 2006). Peter Mandelson, Statement by Peter Mandelson to the INTA Committee on the Textile Agreement with China, 14 June 2005, available at: http://europa.eu.int/comm/commission_barroso/mandelson/ speeches_en.cfm?temp=sppm037_en.htm (accessed 1 June 2006). Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) Between the European Commission and the Ministry of Commerce of the Peoples Republic of China on the Export of Certain Chinese Textile and Clothing Products to the European Union, 12 June 2005, available at: http://europa.eu.int/comm/trade/issues/ sectoral/industry/textile/mou_tex_china_en.htm (accessed 1 June 2006).

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Sino-EU Strategic Partnership not an Empty Talk, Peoples Daily, 7 September 2005. Also Feng Zhongping, ChinaEU Relations Growing Mature, Peoples Daily, 6 September 2005. Cf. William Hawkins, Chinese Textiles Herald Future Tensions with US, China Brief, 5(20), 2005, pp. 13. Berkofsky, EUChina Relations, p. 14; The Foreign Policy Centre (Greg Austin), EUChina Strategic Partnership Must Be Made Reality, press release, 17 May 2005, available at: http://fpc.org.uk/fsblob/465.pdf (accessed 1 June 2006). Stanley Crossick, Fraser Cameron and Axel Berkofsky, EUChina Relations Towards a Strategic Partnership, Working Papers, European Policy Centre, 19 July 2005, p. 25, available at: http://www. theepc.be/TEWN/pdf/251966322_EPC%20JULY.pdf (accessed 1 June 2006). Franco Algieri, EU Economic Relations with China: An Institutional Perspective, China Quarterly, 169, March 2002, pp. 6477, at p. 76. Shambaugh, China and Europe, p. 243. Robin Niblett, China, the EU, and the Transatlantic Alliance, 22 July 2005, available at: http:// www.uscc.gov/hearings/2005hearings/written_testimonies/05_07_21wrts/niblett_robin_wrts.pdf, pp. 34 (accessed 1 June 2006). Joint Press Statement of the 6th EUChina Summit. Solana, The European Union and China: Strategic Partners. Jos Barroso, 4 May 2005, available at: http://europa.eu.int/comm/external_relations/news/barroso/ sp05_040505.htm (accessed 1 June 2006). Barroso, The EU and China: Painting a Brighter Future Together, 15 July 2005, available at: http://europa.eu.int (accessed 1 June 2006). Zhang Yesui, Forging Ahead into the Future and Furthering the Development of ChinaEU AllRound Strategic Partnership, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Peoples Republic of China, 1 May 2005, available at: http://www.fmprc.gov.cn/eng/zxxx/t194651.htm (accessed 1 June 2006). Pan Zhenqiang, The 7th Sino-EU Summit Meeting and the Sino-European Relations in the Future, Outline Info-Service (Konrad Adenauer Foundation), 7, 2004, available at: http://www.kas.de/proj/ home/pub/37/2/year-2004/dokument_id-5840/index.html (accessed 1 June 2006). EU Commission, Current Architecture of EUChina Relations Political Dialogue, available at: http://europa.eu.int/comm/external_relations/china/docs/architecture.pdf (accessed 1 June 2006). Discussed in David Scott, The EUChina Strategic Dialogue: Pathways in the International System, in David Kerr and Fei Liu (eds), The International Politics of EUChina Relations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, forthcoming). Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Peoples Republic of China, China and the EU Hold the First Round of Strategic Dialogue, 22 December 2005, available at: http://www.fmprc.gov.cn/eng/zxxx/ t227891.htm (accessed 1 June 2006). Pangratis, The EU and China, p. 71. Lamy, EUChina Relations: Continuity and Change, 31 October 2003, available at: http://europa. eu.int/comm/archives/commission_1999_2004/lamy/speeches_articles/spla197_en.htm (accessed 1 June 2006). Wang Guoqiang, Both China and the European Union Shall Play a More Important Role in the New Century, Dialogue and Cooperation, 1, 2002, pp. 537, at p. 53. Pan Zhenqiang, The 7th Sino-EU Summit Meeting. Huo Zhengde, On the ChinaEU Strategic Relationship. Huo Zhengde, On the ChinaEU Strategic Relationship, pp. 77, 78. Lamy, Second EUChina Business Dialogue, 23 October 2000, available at: http://www.delchn. cec.eu.int/en/eu_china_wto/wto3.htm (accessed 1 June 2006). Solana, speech at The Sound of Europe conference, 27 January 2006, available at: http://ue.eu. int/ueDocs/cms_Data/docs/pressdata/en/discours/88179.pdf (accessed 1 June 2006). Olli Renh, The EU Accession Process, an Effective Tool of the European Foreign and Security Policy, 21 February 2006, available at: http://europa.eu.int/rapid/pressReleasesAction. do?reference=SPEECH/06/112&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en (accessed 1 June 2006). Jozsef Brcz, How Size Matters: The EU as a Geopolitical Animal, conference paper, The European Union and the World, 56 May 2005, available at: http://web.uvic.ca/europe/ipsa-rc3/ jborocz.pdf (accessed 1 June 2006). Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao Pays an Ofcial Visit to the European Institutions, available at: http://europa.eu.int/comm/external_relations/china/intro/ip04_595.htm (accessed 1 June 2006). Also Prodi Says EUChina Relations at a Historic High Point.

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Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao Pays an Ofcial Visit. Also Prodi Says EUChina Relations at a Historic High Point. Jacques Chirac, Speech by M. Jacques Chirac, President of the Republic, at the Opening of the Thirteenth Ambassadors Conference, 29 August 2005, available at: http://www.diplomatie.gouv. fr/actu/bulletin.gb.asp?liste=20050831.gb.html&submit.x=10&submit.y=5&submit=consulter (accessed 1 June 2006). Benita Ferrero-Waldner, Managing Globalisation: The Case for a European Foreign Policy, 10 February 2006, available at: http://europa.eu.int/rapid/pressReleasesAction. do?reference=SPEECH/06/75&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en (accessed 1 June 2006). Barroso, 4 May 2005, available at: http://europa.eu.int/comm/external_relations/news/barroso/ sp05_040505.htm (accessed 1 June 2006). Solana, Preface, p. 5. Solana, Speech by EU HR Javier Solana at the Graduation Ceremony ESDC High Level Training Course in Stockholm, 17 March 2006, available at: http://ue.eu.int/ueDocs/cms_Data/docs/ pressdata/EN/discours/88870.pdf (accessed 1 June 2006). Solana/European Council, A Secure Europe in a Better World. European Security Strategy, 12 December 2003, available at: http://ue.eu.int/uedocs/cmsUpload/78367.pdf, p. 13 (accessed 1 June 2006). Joint Press Statement of the 6th EUChina Summit. Solana, Preface, p. 6. Solana, The EU Security Strategy Implications for Europes Role in a Changing World, 12 November 2003, available at: http://iep-berlin/mittagsgespraeche/mig-2003/mig-03-Solana-en speech.pdf (accessed 1 June 2006). Quentin Peel, Where Trade Trumps Politics, Financial Times, 2 February 2005. Barroso, The EU and China. Wen Jiabao Holds Talks with the President of the European Commission, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Peoples Republic of China, 6 May 2004, available at: http://www.fmprc.gov.cn/eng/ topics/pwjbve/t97483.htm (accessed 1 June 2006). Also Wen Stresses Importance of Developing EUChina Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, Peoples Daily, 7 May 2004. Yang Xiyue, Power Relations in Todays World, Beijing Review, 17 March 1999, pp. 67, at p. 6. Tang on International Situation and Chinas Diplomatic Work, Beijing Review, 2228 March 1999, pp. 611, at p. 10. Jiang Zemin, Develop ChinaEurope Cooperation and Promote the Establishment of a New International Order, Beijing Review, 1218 April 1999, pp. 68, at p. 7. Wang Wei, EUChina Trade to Benet Both, Peoples Daily, 9 October 2004. Pan Zhenqiang, The 7th Sino-EU Summit Meeting. This echoes Wang Guoqiangs 2002 analysis: deepening cooperation between China and the EU can further promote the development of the multipolar process ... China will align with Europe, in Both China and the European Union Shall Play a More Important Role in the New Century, pp. 57, 54. Mei Zhaorong, EUs Historic Enlargement and its Implications, Chinese Institute of International Studies, 27 September 2004, available at: http://www.ciis.org.cn/item/2004-09-27/50596.html (accessed 1 June 2006). Michael Weinstein, Testing the Currents of Multipolarity, Power and Interest News Report, 15 December 2004. Huo Zhengde, On the ChinaEU Strategic Relationship. David Watts, EUChina Policy Needs to Cut it Free from its American Apron Strings, Asian Affairs, June 2005, available at: http://asianaffairs.com/june2005/europe.htm (accessed 1 June 2006). Feng Zhongping, Forming a Closer Bond, Beijing Review, 27 May 2004, pp. 1823, at p. 23. Solana, The European Union and China: Strategic Partners. Feng Zhongping, Forming a Closer Bond, Beijing Review, 27 May 2004, pp. 1823, at p. 23. Niblett, China, the EU, and the Transatlantic Alliance, p. 1. Michael Lind, The New US Century is Over, China Daily, 7 February 2005. Frank Ching, Changing Dynamics in EUChina Arms Embargo, China Brief, 4(5), 2004, pp. 45; Richard Bitzinger, A Prisoners Dilemma: The EUs China Arms Embargo, China Brief, 4(13), 2004, pp. 13; Zan Jifang, Europe Ponders Arming China, Beijing Review, 23 December 2004, pp. 1011; David Shambaugh, Dont Lift the Arms Embargo, International Herald Tribune, 23 February 2005; Jing Men, Challenge to the EUChina Strategic Partnership An Analysis of the Issue of Arms Embargo, conference paper, The European Union and the World, 56 May 2005, available at: http://web.uvic.ca/europe/ipsa-rc3/jmen.pdf (accessed 1 June 2006).

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INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS 21(1)

Look at EUs Lift of Arms Embargo Calmly, Peoples Daily, 23 December 2004. Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Peoples Republic of China, Wen Jiabao: Arm Sales Embargo Against China Is a Legacy of the Cold War, 8 December 2004, available at: http://www.fmprc. gov.cn/eng/zxxx/t173843.htm (accessed 1 June 2006); Qin Jize, EU Urged to Lift Outdated Arms Embargo, China Daily, 22 March 2005. Zhang Niansheng, What Difculties Does the EU Face in Lifting Arms Embargo Against China?, Global Times, 25 March 2005. Shambaugh, The New Strategic Triangle: US and European Reactions to Chinas Rise, Washington Quarterly, 28(3), 2005, pp. 725, at p. 7; Richard Bernstein, EU vs US vs China: Partnership Paradoxes, International Herald Tribune, 21 January 2005; Bates Gill and Robin Niblett, Diverging Paths Hurt US and Europe, International Herald Tribune, 6 September 2005. Anoop Rathod, Strategic Triangulation, Dartmouth Independent, 7 March 2005. Also David Gossett, In Search of Equilibrium, Academia Sinica, available at: http://www.academiasinicaeuropaea. net/Documents/equilibrium.htm (accessed 1 June 2006). Pangratis, The EUUSChina Triangle, speech at Boston University, 4 April 2006. Niblett, China, the EU, and the Transatlantic Alliance, p. 1. Shambaugh, The New Strategic Triangle, p. 7. Laurent Fabius, The European Union and the Opening Up of China, 12 December 2005, available at: http://www.academiasinicaeuropaea.net/Documents/EuroChinaForum/IVForum.Fabius.htm (accessed 1 June 2006). Benita Ferrero-Waldner, EUChina Partnership at an Exciting Stage, Peoples Daily , 11 May 2005. Ferrero-Waldner, EUChina Partnership at an Exciting Stage. Ferrero-Waldner, The EU, China and the Quest for a Multilateral World, 4 July 2005, available at: http://europa.eu.int/comm/external_relations/news/ferrero/2005/sp05_414.htm (accessed 1 June 2006). West European Union Assembly, Implementation of the European Security Strategy. Niblett, China, the EU, and the Transatlantic Alliance. Ferrero-Waldner, New Visions for EUJapan Relations, 6 April 2006, available at: http://europa. eu.int/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=SPEECH/06/227&format= HTML&aged=0&lan guage=EN&guiLanguage=en (accessed 1 June 2006). Helmut Kunhe, Speech on Behalf of the European Parliament on the Occasion of the 60th EP/US Congress Inter-Parliamentary Meeting in London, 2 December 2005, available at: http://www. helmut-kuhne.de/bruessel/London%20Speech-2%2012%202005.doc (accessed 1 June 2006). Kunhe, Speech on Behalf of the European Parliament. Kunhe, Speech on Behalf of the European Parliament. Solana, speech at The Sound of Europe conference. R. Mitter, A Bitter Revolution: Chinas Struggle with the Modern World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005). Solana, Driving Forwards the EUChina Strategic Partnership, p. 2; Barroso, 4 May 2005, available at: http://europa.eu.int/comm/external_relations/news/barroso/sp05_040505.htm (accessed 1 June 2006). Ni Yanshuo, EU Visit Sets Tone, Beijing Review, 28 July 2005, pp. 1011, at p. 10. Niblett, China, the EU, and the Transatlantic Alliance. Amitav Acharya, Regional Security Arrangements in a Multipolar World? The European Union in Global Perspective, FES Brieng Paper, December 2004, p. 7. Lamy, EUChina Relations: Continuity and Change. Fabius, The European Union and the Opening up of China. Michaela Eglin, Chinas Entry into the WTO with a Little Help from the EU, International Affairs, 3, July 1997, pp. 489508. Ting Wai, EUChina Relations: Economic, Political and Social Aspects, conference paper at The 3rd Conference of European Union Studies Association Asia Pacic (EUSA-AP), 9 December 2005, p. 6, available at: http://wwwsoc.nii.ac.jp/eusa-japan/download/eusa_ap/paper_TingWai.pdf (accessed 1 June 2006). Kay Moller, Diplomatic Relations and Mutual Strategic Perceptions, China Quarterly, 169, 2002, pp. 1032, at p. 10.

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Katinka Barysch, The EU and China, CER Bulletin, 39, December 2004/January 2005, available at: http://www.cer.org.uk/articles/39_barysch.html (accessed 1 June 2006). See also Katinka Barysch, Charles Grant and Mark Leonard, Embracing the Dragon: The EUs Partnership With China (London: Centre for European Reform, 2005). Ching, Changing Dynamics in EUChina Arms Relations, p. 5. Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of Great Powers (London: Unwin Hyman, 1989), p. 472. Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of Great Powers, pp. 447, 458. See Michael Swaine and Ashley Tellis, Interpreting Chinas Grand Strategy: Past, Present, and Future (Santa Monica: RAND, 2000). See Charles Grant and Mark Leonard, How to Build a Better EU Foreign Policy, CER Bulletin, April/May 2006, available at: http://www.cer.org.uk/articles/47_grant_leonard.html (accessed 1 June 2006). Chris Patten, The Role of the European Union on the World Stage, 25 January 2001, available at: http://europa.eu.int/comm/external_relations/news/patten/speech01_23.htm (accessed 1 June 2006). Solana, Address by Dr Javier Solana to the Bundesakademie fr Sicherheitspolitik, 11 May 2000, available at: http://ue.eu.int/cms3_applications/applications/solana/details.asp?cms id=335&BID=107&DocID=61441&insite=1 (accessed 1 June 2006). Patten, The Role of the European Union. Solana, Address. Solana, Preface, p. 6. EU Sets up Training Body for Security, Defense, Peoples Daily, 19 July 2005. Mandelson, Chinas Future, and its Impact on Us, available at: http://europa.eu.int/ comm/commission_barroso/mandelson/speeches_articles/temp_mandels_speeches_ en.cfm?temp=sppm002_en (accessed 1 June 2006). E.g. China, France to Beef Up Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, Peoples Daily, 21 April 2005; China, France to Enhance Strategic Partnership, China Daily, 10 May 2005; Premiers Visit to France Reinforces Global Strategic Partnership, Xinhua News Agency, 7 December 2005. Blair: EUChina Ties Immensely Important, China Daily, 6 September 2005. Shambaugh, China and Europe: The Emerging Axis. See Kerr and Fei Liu, The International Politics of EUChina Relations, for ongoing discussions on strategic identities and other strategic and political aspects of their relationship.

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