New Challenges for China-EU Comprehensive Strategic Partnership

Ye Jiang

New Challenges for China-EU Comprehensive Strategic Partnership

Ye Jiang

China and the EU announced the establishment of the Comprehensive Partnership in 2001. In 2003, both sides agreed to upgrade the Comprehensive Partnership to the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, since then, China and the EU positively conducted coordination and cooperation from strategic and forward-looking perspectives. However, it is undeniable that with the extensive and profound evolvement of contemporary international relations and the new development in EU foreign policy after the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty, China-EU Comprehensive Strategic Partnership is facing a range of new challenges.

I. EU Intellectual Elites’ Query about the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership

Since 2009, more and more EU intellectual elites and China experts have begun to query openly the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership between China and the EU. In April 2009, European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), one of the distinguished EU think tanks, published a policy report with the title of “A Power Audit of EU-China Relations” co-authored by John Fox and Francois Godement. The report called in the question of EU policy towards China and cast doubts on China-EU Comprehensive Strategic Partnership. The report pointed out that “the result is an EU policy towards China that can be described as ‘unconditional engagement’: a policy that gives China access to all the economic and other benefits of cooperation with Europe while asking for little in return. Most EU Member States are aware that this strategy, enshrined in a trade and cooperation agreement concluded back in 1985, is showing its age. They acknowledge its existence, largely ignore it in practice, and pursue their own, often conflicting national approaches towards China. Some challenge China on trade, others on politics, some on both, and some on neither.”And the report concluded that “as this power audit of the EU’s relationship with China has sought to demonstrate, the strategy of unconditional engagement is no longer working. The old approach has been rendered obsolete by China’s power, its skilful exploitation of European weaknesses and its refusal to become a democracy. Europe needs China to become a better partner and a better global citizen. Reciprocal engagement can go a long way towards making that happen”.

Professor Eberhard Sandschneider, who is Otto Wolff Director of the Research Institute, German Council on Foreign Relations, also expressed his doubts about the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership of EU-China Relations. In the speech made on the Forum on China-EU Strategic Partnership held in Beijing on November 11-20, 2009, he said, “Most so-called‘strategic partnerships’ are not ‘strategic’ in a strict sense of the word. In a more narrow definition, strategic partnership should be based on a mutual perspective on basic values, interest and actions to be taken in specific situations. Thus, only the Trans-Atlantic relations are in line with the criterion for strategic partnership, although it is featured with volatility, competitiveness and contradictions and vulnerable to the some dispute.” He believed, “China is too big and the EU is too multifaceted to simply declare the ‘strategic partnership’ and paint the world in black and white.” Stanley Crossick, the late Senior Fellow of the Brussels Institute of Contemporary China Studies and the Founding Chairman of the European Policy Center, also said, “We need to be realistic. The present Sino-European relationship is neither strategic nor a partnership, and signing a ‘Partnership & Cooperation Agreement’ will not change this. A strategic partnership requires a longterm commitment to establish a close relationship across a significant number of policy areas. Despite any differences between them, the partners must recognize the importance of their commitment to each other and be prepared to try to reach common ground wherever possible.” In brief, many European China experts and intellectual elites with certain influence on EU foreign policy making especially EU policy toward China are not optimistic about the prospect of Sino-EU Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, they regard the Sino-EU relationship as“neither strategic nor partnership”, the suspicion about Sino-EU Comprehensive Strategic Partnership were contaminating in EU academia.

In June 2010, based on the previous report “A Power Audit of EU-China Relations”, Francois Godement published his second report entitled “A Global China Policy”, which has certain influence within the EU. The report argues that “Europeans realize that China is now more powerful than it was, but they do not yet recognize the extent to which its policy choices affect every global issue and every region around the world — in other words, the extent to which China has become a global problem for Europe. This requires a global response — in other words, a policy that takes into account China’s role in global issues and in different regions around the world and that enhances European leverage by working with others around the world”. Therefore, Francois Godement raised that Europe needs to change its previous way in dealing with China by adopting pragmatically the so-called Global China policy instead of just thinking of its relationship with China from the perspectives of “strategic partnership” and “unconditional engagement”, i.e.,“Europe needs to co-ordinate its own policy more effectively and to co-operate with other countries to increase its limited leverage over China”. And “such a global China policy will put far greater demands on Europe’s foreign policy than the approach of ‘unconditional engagement’ that Europe has followed until now. In particular, it will require Europe to become much better at co-coordinating its external relations than it has been so far”.

The reasons for the European intellectuals to raise questions about the Sino-EU Comprehensive Strategic Partnership are mainly as follows. First of all, the academic circle of the Europe lays certain stress on the divergence on ideology and political system between China and Europe. In accordance with the viewpoints from Francois Godement, “the EU’s China strategy is based on an anachronistic belief that China, under the influence of European engagement, will liberalize its economy, improve the rule of law and democratize its politics. The underlying idea is that engagement with China is positive in itself and should not be conditional on any specific Chinese behavior”. However,“examples of Europe’s failure to mould China in its own image are legion. Political liberalization seems to have stalled, or even reversed: China has tightened restrictions against NGOs, stepped up pressure on dissidents, and stopped or rolled back local electoral reforms. At the UN, Beijing has built an increasingly solid coalition of general assembly votes, often mobilized in opposition to EU values such as the defense of human rights”. Just because of this “ignored reality”, EU-China relations cannot be treated as the real comprehensive strategic partnership.

Secondly, European scholars believe that Sino-EU Comprehensive Strategic Partnership lacks the legal basis. When establishing Sino-EU strategic partnership, the EU regarded China as a developing country, and the legal basis to conduct cooperation with China was the Agreement on Trade and Economic Cooperation between China and the European Economic Community signed in 1985, when EEC’s trade with China enjoyed a huge surplus. As China is rising as a world-class power, the legal basis for the Sino-EU strategic partnership reduces to exist in name only. If the EU continued to regard China as a developing country, the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership between China and the EU established in 2003 could be maintained as usual; however, the EU began to treat China as the world superpower, in this sense, to sustain the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership is inconsistent with the reality of the bilateral relations.

Finally, divergences between China and the EU in issues like trade, climate change, Africa and Iran in recent years also serve as an important reason for the doubt cast by European scholars on Sino-EU Strategic Partnership. European scholar argued, “The legal and administrative restrictions on European companies trading and investing in China are far greater than those Chinese companies face in Europe, and this feeling is confirmed by the European Union Chamber of Commerce’s European Business in China Position Paper 2009/2010 which was published on September 2, 2010.” The EU has been eager to play a leading role in coping with the global climate change, but the European scholars believes “China has consistently rejected legally binding agreements since the Kyoto Protocol in 1997”. And China’s behavior lags far behind the European position, which caused damage to the strategic partnership. In terms of Africa issue, European scholar argued, “Beijing’s international reputation has been harmed as result of its policies towards Darfur, Zimbabwe and the wielding of its UNSC veto, opposing the imposition of sanctions against Zimbabwe and Sudan. That policy is widely divergent from that of Europe and poses negative effect on EU-China relations.” In addition, “China has cooperated with Russia to scupper international sanctions against countries such as Iran, and with emerging or developing countries to protect national sovereignty on issues that range from trade to human rights.” Obviously, those acts are not in conformity with the perception of European intellectuals on strategic partnership.

It is without any doubt that the questions raised by the intellectual elites within the EU toward the Sino-EU Comprehensive Strategic Partnership and the proposal put forward by those who intend to change the EU’s China policy pose severe challenge to Sino-EU Comprehensive Strategic Partnership. The negative views and advices on policy adjustment from the European academic circles will have direct impact on politicians and the foreign policy making of the EU. For instance, “A Power Audit of EU-China Relations”, a report on the EU’s policy toward China, and “A Global China Policy”, a report about the policy recommendation for the EU to China, are released by European Council on Foreign Relations. The ECFR is the first pan-European think-tank. Launched in October 2007, its objective is to conduct research and promote academic debates across Europe on the development of foreign policy based on coherent and effective European values. Among the members of the ECFR are former prime ministers, presidents, European commissioners, current and former parliamentarians and ministers, public intellectuals, business leaders, activists and cultural figures from the EU member states. Thus it can be seen that the influence of negative point of views from the European academic circle on China-EU strategic partnership through ECFR on the EU’s politicians is self-evident. It also should be noted that after the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty, the EU began to adopt a series of foreign policy adjustments, and the policy recommendations proposed by the European intellectuals regarding the EU’s China policy will certainly affect the adjustment.

II. The impact of new adjustment of EU foreign policy after the Lisbon Treaty on China-EU Comprehensive Strategic Partnership

On December 1, 2009, the Lisbon Treaty was ratified by the member states of the EU and entered into force. The Lisbon Treaty had direct impact on EU Common Foreign Policy through the adjustment of decision-making, the implementation body and the power expansion of European Parliament. The concrete content for the adjustment of EU foreign policy making and implementation are as follows: First, the establishment of the President of European Council facilitates the coordination of the common foreign and security policy within the EU, and is conducive to the consistency of foreign policy decision making by the European Council. Second, the set-up of the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy provides an effective channel to coordinate the relations between European Council and EU Commission in terms of external relations. Third, the function of Council on General Affairs and External Relations, comprising foreign ministers within the Council of the European Union, is more prominent, and the EU Foreign Affairs Council was set up to orchestrate the common foreign and security policy under the chair of the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, so as to improve the EU Common Foreign and Defense Policy mechanism in operational level. Fourth, setting up the European External Action Service in order to promote the implementation of EU foreign and security policy.

The final say of the European Parliament in EU Common Foreign Policy is manifested in following aspects: though the European Parliament neither becomes the legislative branch of the EU nor is upgraded as the direct decision making body of EU foreign policy after the Lisbon Treaty, its indirect involvement in the legislation and foreign policy making process earned the additional influence on EU common foreign policy. The power of the European Parliament on amending and controlling the EU budget was strengthened as the Lisbon Treaty canceled the distinction between mandatory expenditure and non-mandatory expenditure in EU budget while endowing the parliament with the power to endorse the overall budget for the EU. Besides, the power of the European Parliament was also expanded on the selection and appointment of the president of EU Commission through the Lisbon Treaty by shifting from stamping on the nomination of the European Council previously to conducting the election among the nominees. And the European Parliament also plays an important role in the construction of EU External Action Service and the operation of EU branches on external affairs. On the one hand, the European Parliament takes control of the plan on the establishment of EU External Action Service by the use of power on ratifying EU budget; on the other, it has always stressed that the newly established foreign affairs branch must respond to the diplomatic proposal made by the European Parliament within three months. In addition, the European Parliament was also entrusted with the nominating power to amend the treaty by the Lisbon Treaty. All those indicate that the influence of the European Parliament on EU common foreign policy including the EU’s policy toward China will be greatly elevated.

The impact of ideology factor of the European Parliament on EU foreign policy is prominent. And to a great extent, European public opinion affects the European Parliament’s attitude toward EU foreign policy especially the EU’s China policy. The Pew Global Attitudes Project by Pew Research Center shows that the general public’s favorable impression on China in EU members like Germany, France, Britain, Poland and Spain was rebounding greatly in 2010, but the percentage responding favorable view of China were all less than 50%: Germany was only 30%, the lowest in the five countries; the next was France, 41%; Britain and Poland were 46%; and the Spain was the highest, 47%. The situation did improve a lot compared to the data of 2008 when the percentages in Germany, France, Britain, Poland and Spain was 26%, 28%, 47%, 33% and 31% respectively, however, they still had rather negative impact on the European Parliament in dealing with the relations with China. Furthermore, the European Parliament has a deeprooted ideological orientation in dealing with China. As early as in 1988, the European Parliament provided the platform for Dalai Lama’s separatist activities by inviting Dalai Lama to meet the press in the Parliament, and later in January 2000, the European Parliament passed the resolution to reprimand China’s human rights situation and openly called for linking up the China-EU relations and China’s accession to the WTO with human rights issue, and the European Parliament even asked for the joint action with the US to raise the anti-China proposal in United Nations Human Rights Council. After the declaration of the establishment of Comprehensive Partnership between China and the EU in 2001, especially the escalation of the bilateral relationship to the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership in 2003, the European Parliament slightly changed its attitude to China. But with the exacerbation of the worries from European public on China’s rise after 2006, the European Parliament retrogressed to its formal tough attitude toward China.

Table: Opinion of China: Do you have a favorable or unfavorable view of China?Percent responding Favorable

Percent responding Unfavorable

The European Parliament had raised the criticism against China continuously since 2007. In December 2007, the European Parliament passed the resolution unanimously, urging the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to investigate if China fulfills its commitment on improving human rights. After the Tibetan riot in March 2008, the European Parliament, without conducting thorough and objective investigation, issued the resolution on Tibet immediately to call on the heads of states of EU countries to set the dialogue between Chinese government and Dalai Lama as the precondition for the presence at the Opening Ceremony of Beijing Olympic Games, demanded of the European Council to appoint an envoy on Tibet issue to coordinate the dialogue between Chinese government and Dalai Lama, and asked the UN to set up an independent investigation group to go to Tibet for investigation. Soon the European Parliament approved a resolution to slander China by saying that China’s unconditional support to some African countries worsens the human rights situation and thus China should reduce the financial support to those countries. Before the closing of the meeting at the end of April, the European Parliament adopted another resolution unanimously to maintain the arms embargo to China. In the aftermath of the violent crimes in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region on July 5, 2009, the European Parliament gave the green light to the Xinjiang separatist Rebiya Kadeer for her presence in the discussion about China’s human rights situation held by human rights committee of European Parliament as the chairman of the World Uighur Congress. Rebiya Kadeer vilified China’s ethnic minority policy and religion policy by distorting the violent criminal activities on 5th July, and advocated Xinjiang independence with a flourish of trumpets. In March 2010, the European Parliament even plotted to initiate the discussion over the set-up of European envoy on Tibet and Xinjiang issues.

The pragmatic China policy poses the new challenge to Sino-EU Comprehensive Strategic Partnership under the new circumstances.

After the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty, the EU’s decision making for common foreign policy and the executive body which is in adjustment had a more positive attitude toward China, and their ideological orientation is not as strong as that of the European Parliament. However, it should be noted that the EU foreign policy making and the executive body begin to retune the external policy especially the EU’s policy toward emerging countries like China under the leadership of the President of European Council and EU High Representative for Common Foreign and Security Policy due to the challenges posed by the global financial and economic crisis and the profound evolvement of international system resulted from the rise of emerging powers. On September 16, 2010, the European Council held a meeting to discuss the common foreign policy in the new situation, and reached the following conclusions.

First, Europe is facing many challenges in a rapidly changing world, which requires a concerted international response. The recent economic and financial crisis has exposed that the Europeans’ well-being, security and quality of life depend largely on external developments. The emergence of new players with their own world views and interests is also an important new feature in the international environment.

Second, the European Union must be an effective global actor, ready to share the responsibility for global security and to take the lead in the definition of joint responses to common challenges. A strong economy and internal cohesion will strengthen the Union’s ability to project its influence in the world. The Union can draw on its firmly-rooted belief in effective multilateralism, especially the role of the UN, universal values, an open world economy, and also can take advantage of a set of its unique instruments.

Third, in accordance with the Lisbon Treaty, and in line with the European Security Strategy, the European Union and its member states will act more strategically so as to bring Europe’s true weight to bear internationally. This requires a clear identification of its strategic interests and objectives at a given moment and more assertive means to materialize the pursuit of the objectives. The European Council needs to improve coordination between the European Union and its member states, keep in line with the provisions of the Lisbon Treaties, enhance coordination between institutional actors, better integrate all relevant instruments and policies, and make the summit meetings with third countries more effectively.

Fourth, The European Union’s strategic partnerships with key players in the world provide a useful instrument for pursuing European objectives and interests. This will only work when these partnerships are two-way streets based on mutual interests and benefits and on the recognition that all actors have rights as well as duties. The full participation of emerging economies in the international system should allow its benefits to be spread in a balanced manner and its responsibilities to be shared evenly.

It can be learned from the conclusions of the European Council meeting on foreign policy that the future EU Common External Policy will focus on the exertion of global role of the EU in the transition of international system, in which the EU will not only uphold the effective multilateralism and universal values, but also stress the coordination and consensus among its member states to facilitate the burden sharing with newly emerging entities. It means that “the European Union should actively pursue its strategic interests, including as regards the promotion of bilateral trade, market access for goods and services and investment conditions; the protection of intellectual property rights and the opening up of public procurement markets; stronger discipline in the field of export subsidies; and the dialogue on exchange rate policies.” Compared with the valueoriented policy toward China by the European Parliament, the executive body for the EU’s common foreign policy such as the European Council is more pragmatic. However, the pragmatic China policy poses the new challenge to Sino-EU Comprehensive Strategic Partnership under the new circumstances.

III. The new development in US-Europe Trans-Atlantic alliance poses the challenge to Sino-EU Comprehensive Strategic Partnership

As everyone knows, the incubation and the initial stage of establishment of Sino-EU Strategic Comprehensive Partnership were coincided with the low ebb of US-EU Trans-Atlantic Relationship. After 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001, the Bush Administration upheld the neo-conservatism and pursued vigorously the unilateralism by relying on the U.S. strong military strength, and conducted the anti-terrorism war aimed at pushing forward the U.S. hegemony. Most EU countries headed by France and Germany expressed their opposition to the U.S. unilateralist foreign policy, and attempted to balance the American hegemony through the EU’s normative strength and multilateralism. As Göran Persson, the Prime Minister of Sweden, remarked that the EU is “one of the few institutions we can develop as a balance to U.S. world domination”. And then French President Jacques René Chirac, German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, and the President of the European Commission Romano Prodi all called for a “more integrated and enlarged Europe” and to create “a superpower on the European continent that stands equal to the United States” so as to” offset U.S. hegemony.” An American scholar Charles Kupchan argued in his book “The end of the American era: US foreign policy and the geopolitics of the twenty-first century” published in 2003 that the coming clash of civilizations will be not happen between the West and the rest but within a West divided against itself; And the rising challenger for the US in the future is not China but the European Union.

NATO, the cornerstone for the US-EU Trans-Atlantic Alliance, was also confronted with severe challenges after the 9/11 incident due to the US pursuit of unilateralism. After the end of the Cold War, NATO unveiled successively two Alliance Strategic Concepts in 1991 and 1999 to work out the transformation of function for NATO in post-Cold War era, and to some extent consolidated the Trans-Atlantic alliance. The first Alliance’s New Strategic Concept formulated in Rome Summit in 1991 put forward the comprehensive crisis response strategy consisting of preventive diplomacy, crisis management and conflict resolution in Europe, and determined to bring the Central and Eastern Europe into the scope of US-EU Trans-Atlantic Alliance by NATO’s eastern expansion and the establishment of Peace Partnership in order to build the European security framework dominated by NATO. The Second Strategic Concept adopted at the Summit meeting in Washington in April 1999 on the occasion of 50th anniversary of the set-up of NATO paved the way for the military operation beyond the NATO sphere under the pretext that the surrounding crisis and conflicts would affect NATO’s security, marking the transformation of the US-Europe Trans-Atlantic Alliance from a regional defensive organization to a regional and even global crisis intervention alliance. However, with the booming of unilateralism in the wake of 9/11 attacks in 2001, the Bush administration, under the pretext of counter-terrorism, bypassed the UN and launched the Iraq War arbitrarily in spite of the strong opposition from its NATO allies France and Germany, bringing a new huge test to the transformed NATO. Rajan Menon, professor of International Relations at Lehigh University and the Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations of the US, wrote in his article that the US should learn to get used to the reality of the impending termination of the alliance. He pointed out that the US military alliances, multilateral or bilateral for more than 50 years will terminate with the evolvement of international circumstances and the disappearance of common objective, NATO is in the process of slow disintegration.

What’s more, when the US launched the war against Iraq by setting aside the opposition from the EU allies, then Secretary of Defense of the US Rumsfeld openly classified the Europe as New Europe and Old Europe, attempting to block the European integration process through deepening the difference among EU nations to cripple the influence of the EU. On the one hand, the US put pressure on Old Europe by ignoring Germany, punishing France and coercing Belgium. On the other, the US created contradictions among Old European countries by intimating the relations with Britain, Italy and Spain, etc. At the same time, the US flattered the so called New Europe, which is Eastern European countries in the NATO, by inciting them to side along with the US while keeping a distance with the EU. The contradictions between Old and New Europe within the EU were shown up under the influence of the US policy. Due to the pressure from the US, the eastern European countries which were newly admitted into the NATO such as Poland, Hungary—so called New European countries—decoupled with France, Germany and other so called Old European countries and diverged on the Iraq war, which added the new variables to European integration process and posed grim challenge to the US-Europe Trans-Atlantic alliance.

It was just influenced by the situations mentioned above that the US-European Trans-Atlantic alliance plummeted to the unprecedented low ebb in 2003, and it was also just in such period that the relations between China and the EU entered into the so called “honeymoon” . The document entitled “A maturing partnership: shared interests and challenges in EU-China relations” adopted by the EU and the China’s “EU Policy Paper”published first ever in 2003 echoed with each other and added new vitality to Chin-EU relations. And in the same year, the two sides agreed to upgrade the Comprehensive Partnership to the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, the depth and width for cooperation reached the new high. However, the honeymoon lasted for only two years. China-Europe relations changed sharply in 2006, and the China-EU Comprehensive Strategic Partnership entered into a more complicated phase. The reason is multifarious. It is coincidental that in that period, the ties of major EU countries such as France and Germany with the US began to warm up.

In effect, the US-EU Trans-Atlantic relationship had witnessed apparent improvement since 2005. Nicholas Burns, then Under Secretary for Political Affairs of the State Department of the US, pointed out, “we stopped the war of words across the Atlantic, and began a kinder, gentler year in trans-Atlantic. We recognized the truth about our relationship: that we are wed together in a long-term marriage with no possibility of separation or divorce.” Burns further remarked that “Europe will be our most important partner” and emphasized that “to continue to work through NATO as the core trans-Atlantic link”and “to advance the U.S. and EU democracy agenda further east: in Russia, Ukraine, the Caucasus and Central Asia”. And an American expert on European affairs, Reginald Dale, said in an article entitled “Behind the smiles, trans-Atlantic bile” at the end of 2005 that “in spite of the indisputable developments on the surface, these deep, underlying trans-Atlantic pressures are not likely to have been resolved within the next few years”. But since 2006, the US-European Trans-Atlantic relations have been heading toward the direction of relaxation, rebuilding of the mutual trust, maintenance of alliance and promotion of cooperation. In November 2010, a third alliance strategic new concept entitled “Active Engagement, Modern Defense” released by NATO in the post-Cold War era may be seen as the reasonable logic for the development.

The US-Europe Trans-Atlantic alliance has overcome the difficult time caused by the Iraq war.

Active Engagement and Modern Defense, the Strategic New Concept for the Defense and Security of the Members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization adopted by Heads of State and Government in Lisbon in November 2010, reaffirmed the obligations of mutual defense among member states of NATO, including the mutual protection of civilians personal safety, and pointed out that the Trans-Atlantic alliance should shoulder the responsibility of crisis prevention, conflict management and the stabilization of post-conflict situation, including working with important partners as the UN and EU. According to the new strategic concept, the core mission and principle for NATO are as follows: “First, NATO’s fundamental and enduring purpose is to safeguard the freedom and security of all its members by political and military means. Today, the Alliance remains an essential source of stability in an unpredictable world. Second, NATO member states form a unique community of values, committed to the principles of individual liberty, democracy, human rights and the rule of law. The Alliance is firmly committed to the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations, and to the Washington Treaty, which affirms the primary responsibility of the Security Council for the maintenance of international peace and security. Third, the political and military bonds between Europe and North America have been forged in NATO since the Alliance was founded in 1949; the transatlantic link remains as strong, and as important to the preservation of Euro-Atlantic peace and security, as ever. The security of NATO members on both sides of the Atlantic is indivisible. We will continue to defend it together, on the basis of solidarity, shared purpose and fair burden-sharing.”

Apparently, the new security strategic concept of NATO reveals that the US-Europe Trans-Atlantic alliance has overcome the difficult time caused by the Iraq war, and enters into a new development stage. According to the track of NATO’s three defense and security strategic concepts in postcold war era ( 1991, 1999 and 2010 respectively) , the new concept entitled “Active Engagement and Modern Defense will serve as the guidance for the development of US-Europe Trans-Atlantic alliance for the next ten years. Therefore, the US and Europe will consolidate the alliance through following aspects: first, emphasizing that the national security of member states of Trans-Atlantic alliance need to be secured by NATO; second, regarding the US-Europe Trans-Atlantic alliance as the important mechanism for the civilian safety in all member states; third, continuing to promote the expansion of security strategy of Trans-Atlantic alliance from Europe boundary to Global sphere; fourth, preserving the universal value to tamp the basis of the Trans-Atlantic alliance.

The series of changes in the US-Europe Trans-Atlantic alliance indicated that the US-Europe relations in the second ten-year period of the 21st century have undergone positive evolvement compared with the US-Europe relations in 2003 when China and the EU established the comprehensive strategic partnership. And the joint statement issued by the EUUS summit held in Lisbon in 2010 further testified this trend. The EU-US Summit Joint Statement released on November 20, 2010 announced at the beginning, “We, the leaders of the European Union and the United States, met today in Lisbon to re-affirm our close partnership. Our shared values and political experience and our deep economic interdependence constitute an extraordinary resource. As we both face new challenges, we want our partnership to bring greater prosperity and security to our 800 million citizens on the two sides of the Atlantic.”The joint statement sets forth the approaches and methods for the cooperation and coordination between the US and EU on ensuring the strong, balanced and sustainable economic growth, responding to the climate change and international development etc global challenges, and protecting human security in both sides.

It is beyond any doubt that the new development in the US-Europe Trans-Atlantic alliance constituted an apparent challenge to the Sino-EU Comprehensive Strategic Partnership. Firstly, the new evolvement in the Trans-Atlantic relations put emphasis on their solid common values foundation. It can be felt from the NATO strategic new concept and the EU-U.S. Summit Joint Statement that were released in November 2010 that the US and Europe are laying their stress on the so called universal values such as freedom, democracy, human rights and rule of law. In comparison, Sino-EU Comprehensive Strategic Partnership underlines the mutual respect, friendly cooperation, mutual benefits and win-win as well as common development based on different social systems, different development modes and divergent values. The reconsolidation of US-EU alliance that stresses common values will pose considerable challenge to the Sino-EU strategic partnership that consists of actors with divergent values, although it does not mean the end of the latter.

Secondly, the new progress in US-Europe Trans-Atlantic alliance will drive them to conduct cooperation and coordination in widespread areas like security, economy and global issues. Although the cooperation areas for China-EU Comprehensive Strategic Partnership are also widespread, both sides have a series of disputes on trade, Africa and climate change, etc. With the further cooperation and coordination in wide-range areas between the US and EU, the room left for China and the EU to deal with the divergences and contradictions will be squeezed accordingly. It is in all probability that the differences between China and the EU on issues of RMB exchange rate, responding to climate change, and coping with the global development, etc may be more difficult to be resolved in a satisfactory way due to new development of US-EU relations.

China and the EU have increasingly broad common interest and their relations are of even greater strategic significance.

Finally, the new development in Trans-Atlantic relations weakens the EU’s impetus to advance the comprehensive strategic partnership with China. It should be admitted that the tension and alienation of Trans-Atlantic alliance in 2003 and the disputes over security issues between the US and Europe were serving as one of the important impetuses for the EU in carrying forward the comprehensive strategic partnership with China. It is in that reason that the momentum from the EU to advance the Sino-EU Comprehensive Strategic Partnership will be largely undermined in the wake of full adjustment of US-Europe Trans-Atlantic alliance relations, especially the coincidence of security thinking after the Trans-Atlantic alliance published the strategic concept recently. And the logical conclusion is that the mutual coordination between China and the EU on comprehensive strategic partnership will be more difficult than before.

To sum up, Sino-EU Comprehensive Strategic Partnership will confront a series of new challenges. Currently, China has as always been very positive to advance the comprehensive strategic partnership with the EU. As Chinese President Hu Jintao pointed out when exchanging congratulatory messages with EU President Herman Van Rompuy to mark the 35th anniversary of the establishment of China-EU diplomatic ties in 2010, “After entering the new century, China and the EU formed a comprehensive strategic partnership. As major powers in the world, China and the EU have increasingly broad common interest and their relations are of even greater strategic significance. China has always regarded the EU as one of its most important partners, and is willing to further promote political dialogue at all levels with the EU, enhance political and strategic mutual trust, broaden the fields of cooperation, and elevate their cooperation to a new high. China is ready to join hands with the EU to tackle global challenges and make China-EU ties a model for mutual respect, friendly coexistence, win-win cooperation and common progress between different social systems and modes of development.” Meanwhile, the EU is looking forward to the cooperation with China continuously so as to cope with a range of economic problems, especially the sovereign-debt crisis in some EU countries caused by the global financial and economic crisis. It is due to the existence of the two reasons that the challenge for Sino-EU Comprehensive Strategic Partnership has not yet come out, and the severity of the challenge is far from sharp. However, as long as the abovementioned three factors that will give rise to new challenge to the Sino-EU Strategic Partnership continue to exist, such challenge will be highlighted inevitably after the EU gets out of the shadow of global financial and economic crisis. We should take this account into serious consideration and have sufficient preparation accordingly.

Ye Jiang is Senior Research Fellow at Shanghai Institutes for International Studies.