A united EU: bad deal for China?

• Source: Global Times
• [22:44 November 30 2009]
• Comments

GT: What does a more concerted EU mean for China? Does China face more opportunities or more challenges?

Wu: I think it will be more difficult for China to deal with the EU. As the EU expanded, more central and eastern European countries became EU members, increasing the EU's internal economic, social and cultural differences.

Considering their different understandings of China's rise, and their ideological background, I don't think a unified China policy of all the 27 EU member states, if possible, is necessarily most advantageous to China.

When there were only six, 10, or 20 EU members, maybe persuading only German, France and Britain was enough to promote the EU to achieve a unified policy that met China's interests. However, now there are as many as 27 EU member states.

Under the double majority voting rule, which was introduced by the Treaty of Lisbon, powerful EU members as German and France exert less influence on EU's foreign policy making. Consequently, when it comes to economic and trade issues, China has to consider all these states' different national and economic interests.

More than that, as for some issues concerning values and ideologies, China will face more barriers. For example, some northern European countries hold widely different attitudes toward things like human rights from China, and central and eastern European countries historically have ideological divergences with China.

Ding: I don't think a more unified EU will bring challenges to China. On the contrary, I believe it will be good for China.

There used to be a situation that some EU members might shift their responsibility to others at the mention of some China-related issues.

When China negotiated with the EU on lifting the embargo on arms to China, for example, France said that it agreed but Britain disagreed, and Britain said that it consented to the lifting but some other EU members did not. Thus it was difficult to make progress. Things will be different if there is a more unified EU.

However, it's worth noticing that the EU's China policy will not change a lot in the short term. Moreover, even though the approval of the Treaty of Lisbon and the appointment of an EU "president" and "foreign policy chief" have made significant steps toward its integration, it is still a long way from speaking with one voice.

Divided national interests among EU members clearly exist, and this is why the EU is facing the problem of reduced international influence.

GT: Early this year, during his trip to Europe, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao bypassed France in order to express China's dissatisfaction toward that country. As the EU is getting more and more unified, should China still adopt different policies toward different European countries?

Wu: Similar approaches received divided comments at home and abroad. Due to EU members' different political and diplomatic interests, the EU has no unified foreign policy yet.

In this case, it's not the right way to use their differences to gain advantages. But when we respectively handle bilateral relations with European countries, it's reasonable.

Under this complicated situation, China has to have China-EU relations as well as maintaining bilateral relations with every EU member state. In other words, China needs to find a middle ground between the two aspects. On one hand, it must respect the EU as an integrated organization, and on the other hand, respect each sovereign country's national interests. This is very important.

Consequently, different problems should be solved in the light of concrete conditions.

In the economic and trade field, in which the EU has achieved almost complete integration, it's better for China to employ universal policies, because EU members have had closed coordination mechanisms, which are not easy for outsiders to understand.

Moreover, France and Germany coordinate with each other very closely, and even hold joint cabinet sessions. It's not wise to alienate them, as it might only leads to bad results.

But in some other fields, EU members, especially the powerful ones, still have many differences. China has to adopt different policies to reach win-win agreements with different countries.