The EU yesterday was to weigh a more defensive strategy on China, signaling a possible end to the unfettered access Chinese business has enjoyed in Europe, but which Beijing has failed to reciprocate.
Caught between a US-Chinese rivalry, EU leaders were to try to find a middle path during a summit dinner in Brussels, the first time they have discussed at the highest level how to deal with Beijing.
However, despite the common stance Brussels wants to foster, Italy prepared to receive Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) for a visit during which he was expected to sign major bilateral trade deals.
European Commissioner for Trade Cecilia Malmstrom yesterday told an American Chamber of Commerce conference on transatlantic relations that the international economic order has changed.
“China has risen to become an economic and geopolitical competitor, and a systemic competitor,” she said before EU leaders met.
With Xi starting a tour of France and Italy, EU leaders wanted to present a united front ahead of an EU-China summit on April 9.
According to a draft summit statement, the EU wants to set deadlines for China to make good on trade and investment pledges that have repeatedly been pushed back.
It marks a shift toward what EU diplomats say is a more “assertive and competitive mindset.”
“It has been extremely difficult for the EU to formulate a clear strategy on China, and past policy documents have not been strategically coherent,” said Duncan Freeman at the EU-China Research Centre at the College of Europe. “There is now a clear effort to do that.”
Europe has often agreed with the US on what global problems were, but not always on the cure, Malmstrom said.
“It is tempting to try to lock out China, to decouple rather than to discipline. That might work in the short term, but the long term requires a deeper fix, systemic reforms built to last,” she said.
The deepest tensions lie around China’s slowness to open its economy, a surge of Chinese takeovers in critical sectors in the EU and an impression that Beijing has not stood up for free trade.
Unlike the US, which has a naval fleet based in Japan to wield influence over the region, the EU lacks military power to confront China, so its approach is technical.
However, any new EU policies could be complicated to implement, as individual EU capitals continue to court Chinese investment.
Germany’s views are to be important, as Berlin has at times pressed for a tougher answer to unfair competition from Chinese rivals, but also championed a closer relationship with Beijing.
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