ECIPE Seminar: China-Europe Relations – Do They Have a Strategic Direction?

For the most part, China and the European Union have focused their relation on commercial policy – initially around China’s accession to the WTO and lately about the quest for market access in China and the general terms of free competition. Is there now a change under way? Rightly or wrongly, talks about the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) have gained a strategic content, and China is increasingly aware about the challenges to the regional order for peace and stability in Europe coming from Russia. While the previous Commission treated China most of all as trading partner, should the new Commission aim to give it a strategic component?