The Sino-European Encounter

The last decades are characterized by significant changes when referring to the world
politics arena. The emergence of the European Union (EU) as a global actor and the rise of
Peoples Republic of China are considered to be the most important events that have occurred in
the world politics in the aforementioned decades. The rise of both EU and China is bound to
happen in an environment whose security and public goods is guaranteed by a superpower of the
international world, notably the United States. However, due to certain factors such as their size,
economic weight, and strategic significance, these newly emerged players provide, to different
levels, a formidable challenge to the post-Cold War international order, which is centered on US
primacy.
Last years have had a certain impact on the Sino-European relations, mainly their
development could be seen as moving at a dramatic pace across the board. Since the EU
enlargement, after the 2004, China had become the EUs second biggest trading partner, this
being consequently valid for EU, situating itself ahead of the US, and Japan in the trading
partnership with China. Moreover, with the economic ties already established, the political ones
have been bolstered with the establishment of strategic partnership in the Autumn of 2003,
subsequently being followed by an agreement on space and satellite navigation cooperation and
the promise to start discussion in lifting the EU arms embargo in China.
This start of Sino-European relations took the form of a techno-political linkage bound to
attract the attention, and concern, of other global players. Nevertheless, a strategic cooperation,
and one on security related fields had transformed the Sino-European relationship into a matter
of significance for West Asias major powers and the United States. The aforementioned attempt
to promote EU space and defense interests in China had majorly contributed to the changing of
perceptions of the EU, providing, therefore, an ominous test for EU policy makers.




2
This paper attempts to briefly summarize the emergence and development of the Sino-
European relations. Firstly, it will analyze the relation between Europe and China on historical
and political grounds, for the providing of the conclusion related to Chinas influence on Europe
in the last part of the paper.

For a significant period of time, the relationship between China and the EU could have
been described only as secondary relationship
1
, or, as referred by Kapur a relationship of distant
neighbors.
2
This view has persisted as the general one among political scientists and area
specialists until 2003, when the Peoples Republic of China issued its policy paper on its
relationship with the EU.
According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs the strategic partnership between the two
was described as follows:
There is no fundamental conflict of interests between China and the EU and neither side
poses a threat to the other. However, given their differences in historical background, cultural
heritage, political system and economic development level, it is natural that the two sides have
different views or even disagree on some issues(Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 2003).
Moreover, despite the fact that the Chinese policy paper did not develop its own
interpretation of the Sino-EU partnership, nor did it provide a vision for future interactions, it
did, however, reflected Chinas interpretation of the EU and its role in the international system.
This ideational level that is, the ideas rooted in Chinas political culture and shaped by its
historical past is nevertheless not openly exposed to the international public. Consequently, it is
clear that Chinas relationships with Europe are becoming increasingly important in Chinese
foreign policy. Nevertheless, in what concerns the international affairs field, Chinese and
European leaders have developed a new perspective, now perceiving that they have many
parallel interests. It is true that many West European countries opened up diplomatic relations
with China much earlier than for example, the United Statesfor example, Denmark, Finland,

1
Michael B. Yahuda, China and Europe. The Significance of a Secondary Relationship in David Shambaugh , Thomas W.
Robison (eds.), Chinese Foreign Policy: Theory and Practice, Oxford: Claredon Press, p. 266-288.
2
Harish Kapur, Distant Neighbous: China and Europe, New York: Pinter Publishers, 1990.




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Sweden, and the United Kingdom in 1950, Norway in 1954, and France in 1964but many
others, especially those in Eastern Europe, did not, especially after the Sino-Soviet split in 1960.
The EU (then the European Community) and China established formal diplomatic relations in
1975, but it was not until 1998 that the two sides began holding regular summits.
On historical grounds, even from ancient times, China and Western Europe were two
major centers of human civilization. Being located at opposite ends of the world, they grew up
and came of age culturally, economically, and politically in geographical separation from each
other. Throughout classical and medieval times, when international relations, generally, were
loose, casual, and regional encounter between China and Western Europe consisted mainly of
indirect economic and cultural exchanges. Although they came to know of each others existence
prior to the beginning of the Christian era, and especially after the opening of the silk route
3
, the
geographical distance and natural barriers between them were excruciatingly big and they were
enough to block any political and military contact.
However, the contemporary adverse balance of trade between the countries of EU and
China is dissimilar as it is as it is due less to Chinas self-sufficiency than to the nature of its role
in the globalized chain of production. In contrast to that, the point that has to be made regarding
the earlier trade is that it was indirect and that, being conducted through the agency of middle
men in central and southern Asia, there were no direct relations between Europeans and
Chinese at this time. Moreover, there are two factors that can be distinguished in the continuous
shaping of the relations between Europeans and Chinese. Firstly, the tyranny of the distance,
which can be perceived as almost-overcame by the modern technology and transportation, and
secondly, the primacy of the trade as the main conduit for and substance of their relationship.
Michael Yahuda argues that direct relations between European states and China did not
begin until 1514, when the Portuguese first reached China from Malacca. However, it is
important to bear in mind that well before that date European civilization and development had
been greatly influenced by the transmission of inventions and discoveries first made in China.
4


3
As early as the third century B.C., the Chinese people were known abroad as the Seres, the Greek for the silk people, mainly
because of the Silk Road a historical network of interlinking trade routes across the Afro-Eurasian landmass that
connected East, South, and Western Asia with the Mediterranean and European world, as well as parts of North and East Africa.
4
David Shambaugh, Eberhard Sandschneider, Zhou Hong (eds.), China-Europe Relations: Perceptions, Policies and Porspects,
Routledge, 2008, p.13




4
There can be distinguished four main periods that have shaped the Sino-European
relations, mainly: 15001800, when Europeans were influenced by China; the nineteenth and
early part of the twentieth centuries when the Europeans forcibly broke into China and shaped
the modernization of the country; 1949989, the Cold War period, when their relations were
dependent on the two superpowers; and finally, 19902006, when the two sides developed
relations that were largely independent of third parties.
The first period of time 1500-1800 has brought not only intellectual influence seen as a
counter-model of the existing one- for instance, Confucianism and Chinese philosophy-, but also
inspiration for positive theories. As a clear example Francois Quesnay, the leader of the French
physiocrats, regarded as the first scientific school of economics, was much influenced by
Chinese classical philosophy and he favoured something called the natural order. Applied to
economics, he argued that all wealth was ultimately derived from land, which he called the net
product, and care of the state should be devoted to encouraging primary production, leaving
manufacture and commerce to adjust themselves according to demand. He argued that the latter
two did not create wealth and asserted that state attempts to control them would only interfere
with the natural order. It was from this unlikely source that the doctrine of laissez faire was
derived.
5

Moreover, the eighteenth century was indeed the time when the cult of China was at its
height. Chinese porcelain, which had already found imitators in Europe, was in high demand and
had led to the manufacture in China of porcelain with what were thought to be European designs
for export to Europe. Meanwhile in Europe a craze for things based on the more whimsical
patterns of Chinese design led to the fashion of chinoiserie, which spread beyond the wealthy
and the aristocracy to reach the new rising middle classes in Europe.
6
Consequently, the export
of tea from China has brought to existence not only the practice of drinking tea, but also a new
social custom of dinking it, especially in England. It is though that the most lasting contribution
of that period was in government through the emulation of its selection of government service
through open examinations.

5
G.F. Hudson, Europe and China: A Survey of their Relations from the earliest times to1800, London: Edward Arnold & Co,
1931, p. 322-326.
6
D.E. Mungello, The Great Encounter of China and the West, 15001800, Rowman & Littlefield, 1995, p. 67.




5
The second period of time 1800-1949- has had a greater impact on China and deals
with the European imprint of it. China had been conquered many times before in its long
history, but never before by bearers of a civilization that could transcend that of China itself.
7

Its history is seen as a continuing struggle to come to terms with the challenges of modernity
imposed by the Europeans since the first Anglo-Chinese War, known as the Opium War (1839-
1842). After the Second Anglo-Chinese War (1858-1860), the Chinese finally recognized that
the challenges they were encountering were of such dimension they have never had to face in
their history before. These defeats has done nothing, though, but rise the general thought
according to which the European superiority was merely the product of a more advanced
technology, and they could proceed into reviving the Confucianism system if only they could get
to the same level in terms of technology.
Perhaps the most significant impact of the Europeans on Chinese history was in the
political realm both in the sense of theory and of practice by bringing about the modernization
of the Chinese state; the first taking place in the realm of theory. Chinese students who went to
Europe in the 1870s and 1880s to study naval technology and other scientific and applied
technologies took an interest in British, French and German societies around them and realized
that the advances of the Europeans had deeper social and philosophical mainsprings. One of the
most significant of these returned students was Yan Fu, who translated into classical Chinese the
key writings of John Stuart Mill, Montesquieu and Adam Smith, which profoundly changed the
outlook of the new generation of students at the end of the century.
8

The period of time between 1949 and 1989 was influenced by the Cold War, and the
relationship between China and Europe was dominated by issues existent mainly because of their
perspectives and relations with the United States and the Soviet Union. That did not mean that
some of the Europeans and the Chinese did not try at different times to forge distinctive relations
with each other, but it did mean that in the final analysis their policies were subordinated to, or
were derivative of, their relations with the two superpowers.
9
The apparent difference between

7
David Shambaugh, Eberhard Sandschneider, Zhou Hong (eds.), China-Europe Relations: Perceptions, Policies and Porspects,
Routledge, 2008, p.17
8
Benjamin Schwartz, In Search of Wealth and Power: Yen Fu and the West , Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1964.
9
Gerrit W. Gong, Chinas Entry into International Society, in Hedley Bull and Adam Watson (eds.), The Expansion of
International Society,Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985, p. 171183.




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the two allies helped to sow the seeds for later Chinese attempts to cultivate the West Europeans
and to exploit what they saw as transatlantic differences.
The outbreak of the Korean War consolidated the Cold War divide in East Asia and put a
seal on any attempts by the Europeans to develop new approaches towards China at that time.
However, the Korean War did not have such a significant influence on the European relations
with China, as that with the US. The Geneva Conference of 1954 that was convened ostensibly
to settle matters in Korea is remembered most for the agreements reached on Indo-China. Those
agreements were reached primarily through the diplomatic efforts of China, Britain and France
and they had only the grudging support of the American side.
10

In all the tension of this period, the East Europe developed their relation with china,
largely because of their membership of the socialist camp, and mostly because of their relations
with the Soviet Union. Nevertheless, the relations with East Europeans as a whole were
deteriorated in step, relations with the Soviet Union, Albania and Romania had been embraced
by the Chinese because of their new-found distaste for Soviet dominance.
It was a clear fact that Europeans looked to China for inspiration rather than the other
way around. A best example for this would be the Cultural Revolution, in the late 60s, when
European students and some French intellectuals including Sartre claimed to see in Maos assault
on established institutions something in common with their own aspirations in the so-called
revolution of 1968. However, as argued by Michael Yahuda it is clear that yet again that was an
example of dissatisfied European intellectuals using an imagined view of China with which to
castigate their respective domestic establishments.
11

Later on, the period after 1985 brought the relations between Europe and China to a new
level, as China began to take an interest in their experiences with reform communism. Moreover,
the organization of the Chinese economy and of its state enterprises was much more similar to
those of the East than of the West Europeans.
The immediate period after the Cold War, the relations between the two have seen major
improvements, as the aforementioned period has brought to an end the bipolar structure of
international politics which had shaped and constrained the character of relations between

10
Robert F. Randle, Geneva 1954: The Settlement of the Indo-China War, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969.
11
David Shambaugh, Eberhard Sandschneider, Zhou Hong (eds.), China-Europe Relations: Perceptions, Policies and
Porspects, Routledge, 2008, p.24




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Chinese and Europeans in the previous four decades. For their part, China adapted rapidly to the
end of the Cold War in Europe by reestablishing diplomatic relations with the post-communist
states of Eastern Europe. Consequently, the Europeans goal was to deepen Chinas participation
in the international system and to promote its emergence as a responsible great power that
observed the norms and principles of international society.

In conclusion, history has shown that the Sino-European encounter has had major impact
on both the Europeans and the Chinese, at different levels, in different periods of time even
though the physical distance between the two will always be present. As mentioned, until the
Europeans arrived on Chinese shores five hundred years ago the contact between the two sides
was indirect and trade depended on the uncertain degree of order between warring peoples of
Central Asia and the Middle East. Even today the prospects of a much-vaunted overland link
between China and Europe are held back by the disorder and insecurity in these intervening
regions.
Moreover, as shown, China could be said to have had major influence on developments
in Europe in establishing the foundations on which much of modernity was developed in Europe,
in both the technological sense leading up to the Industrial Revolution and in political and
philosophical senses leading to the European Enlightenment. Later, when Europeans broke down
the doors of Chinas self-exclusion, the main lessons China derived from the exercise were
concerned with building a modern state that in turn was able to stand up to the West.
However, a cultural gap still exists between Europe and China, since most of the
influential arts in the last decades is thought to have come from the West. It would be easier for a
Chinese to name a European painter or writer, but when it comes to the other way around, few
Europeans are acquainted with the Chinese intellectuals. Consequently, have become familiar
with recent Chinese films, but, apart from a few specialist scholars, probably not a single
European could claim knowledge of the intellectual debates that have been conducted in China
since the Tiananmen tragedy of 1989.






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