The relations between China and Europe has been fostered since the since the second century BC, when the China’s Emperor exchanged silk for “celestial horses of Ferghana” to maintain his army (Boulnois, 2010). Even if the silk trade was forbidden outside of the Middle Kingdom, such traffic allowed the worlds of East and West to meet through the creation of the famous “silk road”. After the USSR’s fall in the end of the twentieth century, Europe has started to imagine giving shape to a new territorial cohesion, and a fortiori, continental, which will result in the integration of Eastern European countries, a real bridge to the East and Eurasia (Astarita & Damiani, 2016). But since then, China has not stopped developing, going in the last decades from an emerging power to the position of first world exporter. The corollary consists of fluctuating relations with the European Union, one day a privileged partner, the other a commercial enemy. This paper will attempt to demonstrate the role of political and cultural externalities on EU-China relations by relying first on a theoretical study of these relations before putting these observations into perspective through a study of the issues at work today.
A mistake will be to consider the EU-China relations as a common bilateral cooperation. Indeed, the Chinese foreign trade strategy is based on multilateralism which could be defined as “the practice of coordinating national policies in groups of three or more states” (Keohane, 1990). China has divergent interests in the various European countries and thus seeks to divide its interlocutors to ensure a multiplicity of partners. As early as 1990, China declared that it was adopting diplomacy favourable to “multipolarization” and in opposition to American unipolarity (Cabestan, 2007). This phenomenon is coupled with the European inability to provide single external community policies, as they pass through the intergovernmental process which generates political and ideological difficulties that prevent the adoption of a more advanced European strategy (Padoa-Schioppa, 2013) toward China. According to this point, it seems necessary to proceed to a sub-regional analysis of the Chinese influence’s evolution on the European continent these past decades to better understand the diversity of issues.
China’s multimodal presence in Europe
In a first time, we can separate the Chinese interests toward Europe in three main geographical areas: in the Arctic where China intends to ensure its place as a great power, upon the Mediterranean, which is becoming a major trade issue for the country, and in the East, where the New Silk Road is seeking an entrance to Europe.
In the North for a start where the ice melting opens new sea-lanes and gives access to new hydrocarbon resources. The Northern Sea Route bypassing Eurasia through the Arctic is a boon for China. In general terms, this route would reduce transportation time compared to the Suez Canal: the Yokohama-Rotterdam trip would be reduced by 5 days for example (Thorez, 2008). For China specifically, it would be the opportunity to bypass the South Road, through the Suez Canal directed and frequented by its two commercial enemies: the United States, and more particularly India after the lethal military conflict over disputed territory in the Himalayas in June 15th 2020 (Dalton & Zhao, 2020). Of course, it also concerns Russia, where China massively invests to ensure its supply of hydrocarbons from this country. But more and more, China is working to develop relations with the Arctic countries, and this without going through Russia, which will be more of a rival than an ally in this race for the northern route. Indeed Russia wants to get a national sovereignty on the Northern Sea Road to maintain this area under its jurisdiction while China to keep the Arctic sea under an international right pursuing its liberal ideal. The latter is therefore developing bilateral relations with northern countries, notably Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden with visits of Chinese officials in recent years (Sverdrup-Thygeson and al.,). In the meantime, China develops its own icebreaker fleet: the Xuelong 2, an oceanographic research ship performed its first sea excursion in Arctic in July 2020 (Pasquier, 2021) reinforcing the Chinese presence in the area. In the White Paper in 2018 where China outlines its foreign policy ambitions in the Arctic, it is stated that it defines itself as a “stakeholder” and a “near-Arctic State”, even though its territory is more than 6,000 km from Bering, the nearest Arctic city. As such, China is, as is the European Union, an observer member of the Arctic Council, a forum for representing Arctic Sea stakeholders. This search for influence in the North must be understood in the light of Beijing’s increased attention to sub-regional policies concerning Europe. This continent is considered as a “pole” in the Chinese foreign policy with an important potential to develop diplomatic and economic further the Asia-Pacific region (Sverdrup-Thygeson, ibid). In a second time, these partnerships with the Nordics give China know-how on Arctic affairs and geology. This is evidenced, for example, by the mining project in Greenland (The Diplomat, 2019), the Ice Sheet melting of the country revealing natural gas deposit.
China is thus considerably increasing its influence in northern Europe through bilateral relations that bypass the European supranational organization. But in Southern Europe, the pattern of action is quite different, concerning economic field. As part of its One Belt One Road program in 2013, China has increased its FDI in southern Europe and the Mediterranean in general (Cai, 2017), in mostly middle-size high-tech firms, energy rail, roads and ports. In fact, Beijing prefers to deal with smaller, often weaker, economic entities (Linden, 2018) rather than the European Union as a whole, with divided governance. By dealing primarily with small entities, China secures a leadership position, a position of domination. Moreover, some of these economies have shown weakness in recent times, depending largely on Chinese investment and imports (ibid). China is investing heavily in France, particularly in Marseille, and increasingly in Italy and Spain (Casarini, 2017): COSCO and Qingdao (Chinese shipping firms) together own 49 per cent of the Italian port of Vado, which operates the largest refrigerated facility in the Mediterranean (Louppova, 2016). 75% of the European imports are coming by sea, and the Mediterranean is the greatest inland sea giving access to North Africa and the whole European continent. As we can see, the Chinese strategy for southern Europe is very different from that of the north. We can see the outlines of a strategy with different sub-regional components aimed at establishing a position of economic strength, which applies to the entire European Union. By investing massively in the south of Europe, China is securing its hold on the Mediterranean, an essential element for the establishment of its next maritime belt. Within the framework of this 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road Strategy, China has initiated cooperation forums with southern European countries. First in 2013 with the aim of strengthening cooperation in the field of agriculture with Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Cyprus and Malta, but also in 2015 in Xiamen with these same countries to develop a “Comprehensive Maritime Co-operation” by bringing together ministers and deputies responsible for marine affairs (Ekman, 2018). This sub-regional approach in the south is therefore intended to strengthen a sectoral cooperation with these 6 countries to develop a real trade corridor by the sea.
The Belt and Road (BRI) is the Chinese plan to create sort of a resurgence of the ancient Silk Road in order to create a new world where China will be the centre (Maçães, 2018). The Belt designates the Sea Road starting from China and crossing two thirds of the world by maritime traffic. In this perspective of world reshaping, we better understand the massive investments in the Mediterranean area. The Road, on the other hand, refers to the China’s connection with the rest of Eurasia by land. The Chinese strategy is so to bolstering relations with the countries of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), entering by this way the European Union without going through the front door. In 2012 is created the 16+1 dialogue (that became the 17+1 dialogue in 2019 with the addition of Greece), the aim of which is to establish an annually and multilateral platform for discussion and long-term relations with these countries: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia and Slovenia. These countries are at the centre of China’s going out policy because a quarter of these countries are on the BRI which aims at the development of communication routes and infrastructure. Despite a theoretical horizontal cooperation, China is in practice leading the discussions and appears like a “tutor” affirming its economic domination. The actions developed by this format were numerous, providing in particular for a line of credit of 10 billion dollars, an investment fund with an initial capital of 500 million dollars as well as the sending of economic missions in order to increase Chinese imports and investments (Richard, 2016). Of course, another of the main objectives of this format was also to get a good reputation with Europe by demonstrating its interest in its territory. Curiously, it was the opposite effect that occurred. It has been seen as a matter of potential concern about China´s strategy to divide the EU, because five of the sixteen countries of the forum came from outside the Union (Huotari and al., 2015). China is thus using a multilateral tool of which it is the master to establish lasting relations with this region and to promote its investments, thus attracting the mistrust of the EU.
An agreement to protect European sectors
As we have seen, China’s strategies in Europe are very heterogeneous, and are best applied at the regional level. China is, through its BRI project, shaping the world in its own way, ensuring that it is the nerve centre of a new liberal era of profuse trade in Eurasia. Europe, for its part, is turning to China, but with great concern. Being a liberal supranational organisation, it recognizes the economic interest of a partner such as China. But the massive FDI from the former Middle Empire and the multiple attempts to bypass the European Community bodies is particularly worrisome. For the Commission Vice-President Margrethe Vestager, these investments generate an unfair competition due to the ban on public subsidies in the EU. For her, some forms “were able to offer better prices than their competitors on public contracts not because they were more efficient but because they received financial support from foreign countries” (Euronews, 2021). This phenomenon is coupled with a severe weakness of the European countries due to the pandemic, emphasizing the inequality. It the same scheme that when, in 2008, China took advantage of the European countries’ debt crisis to invest massively in the European ports. A multi-purpose solution has therefore been found, to both benefit from the Chinese market and secure European companies, with the EU-China agreement of 2020. Another important reason for the adoption of such an agreement was the renewal of the American presidency. After the explosive relations maintained with China by President Trump, Joe Biden intended to renew the dialogue with their Asian counterpart. As China announced in return that it was ready to make trade concessions, the EU interpreted this temporality as an opportunity to gain an advantage over the United States. Aware that it was no match for its American ally, this was a unique opportunity to take the initiative towards China. We will focus here on this agreement in order to understand the EU’s responses to what it sees as Chinese trade aggression and thus highlight the difference in approach from the Chinese side.
The EU-China Investment Agreement was envisaged like the solution to the unfair competition between the two powers. It is based on three principle pillars:
- The access for the European investors to the Chinese market. China had already begun this work with its agreement with the United States on the issue of financial services. The EU, for its part, seeks to protect its sensitive sectors and is limited to energy distribution.
- The second pillar, which may seem the most important, concerns the level playing field, commitments on investment rules. Chinese engagements in this matter are extremely vague, and do not commit to any sanction. Indeed, concerning the questions of massive and unequal investments, “the agreement certainly imposes obligations of information and transparency, but does not foresee any binding mechanism or possibility of sanctions” (Godement, 2021).
- The last part concerns the sustainable development, coinciding with the COP 21 restrictions and the EU’s CO2 reduction commitments. China was expected on this issue, being one of the most polluting countries in the world, but it is difficult to imagine China keeping these commitments in view of the increases in coal and steel production in its five-year plan (ibid).
The overall problem with this agreement, as highlighted earlier, is the lack of precision as well as the lack of sanctions if the commitments are not respected. Concerning the financial window, The EU has the possibility of resorting to the WTO to request sanctions, without necessarily having to go through the agreement, which in any case provides for sanctions similar to those of the WTO. In the environment field, it is worst with only an amicable arbitration without any sanction; seems paradoxical considering the pollution at work in China. The last control instrument is the future creation of a biannual summit for the follow-up of the agreement. We therefore regret the excessive passivity of this agreement which seems to be aimed at not offending China. This will obviously not allow opposing Chinese financial offensives on the European continent (ibid), but is only a symbolic victory in that the EU has dealt alone with China in a bilateral perspective. It also carries the risk of division between a European Union that feels it can curb Chinese aggressiveness and the United States, while that we know that divide its partners is a genuine Chine strategy.
This agreement, propelling the EU forward of the international scene and giving China a recognized importance in the Eurasian regional trade, underlines another cultural process. Indeed China and the EU both consider themselves as great powers: China left its Emerging Country position to reach a responsible great power and the Union is assuming a position of “normative power”, which is a power that fundamentally has only the norm as a privileged, even exclusive, instrument of international action (Laïdi, 2008). These two conceptions are de facto in competition (Wong, 2013). This agreement could be interpreted as what Onus called a “social arrangement” (Onus, 1989) to regulate the interactions between social actors, a fortiori with States of global reach, with patterns and rules.
In addition, in perspective of our observation on the division of China’s partners, the EU seeks through this agreement to put forward a single policy for all its member states, and thus demonstrate that its Union is valid and strong. The reasons leading the EU policies toward China are these policies are both external and internal, proving a common identity and a common position (Smith & Vichitsorasatra, 2010).
The Human Rights, the common opposition point to China
As we have seen previously, the scope of this agreement is above all symbolic, representing a privileged dialogue with China in which the EU protects its companies before the US imposes itself as the leader in negotiations with China. Symbolic indeed, because there is a strong possibility that this agreement will never see the light of day, i.e. that it will never be ratified. And this for a reason that bothers China’s partners in world trade: Human Rights through the treatment of the Uyghurs by the Chinese state.
The repression of this ethnic group originated in 1980 with the colonization of Uighur lands by the Han ethnic group, organized by the state. It is neither more nor less than an “internal colonization” (Gladney, 1998) motivating an ethnic crackdown. In 2014, the situation degenerates with a knife attack at the Kumming train station, imputed without any proof to the Uighur community. Later, the Prime Minister compared the situation to September 11, 2001 and the attacks in France and Belgium (Liu & Hirst, 2020), subsequently implementing numerous policies of audiovisual surveillance and discrimination against Uighurs and the strengthening of the police forces in the Xinjiang region. Over time, the situation has only worsened, so that today, Xinjiang can be compared to an “open-air prison”: pressures, self-censorship, threat of imprisonment etc. (Finley, 2018). The detention camps are the object of particular attention from the international community, described by former prison inmates as physical and mental torture (Raza, 2019).
In this respect, the absence of a human rights pillar in the EU-China agreement is questionable, as the European Union claims to be a normative power and it seems difficult for it to turn a blind eye. But the temporality plays once again an important role. One day before departure from his post, Mike Pompeo, the former US secretary of state has declared that China is ongoing genocide against Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang (The Guardian, 19 January 2021), reaffirming its position during the Trump mandate and the Biden’s team joined him on this point. This statement helped to put the issue of the “Uyghur genocide” on the global agenda. In March the 22th, the Foreign Ministers of Canada, UK and US secretary of state produced a joint statement about the Human Rights violation, particularly denouncing religious discriminations.
After that, the Council of the European Union announced raft of sanctions against Chinese officials suspected to be involved in right violations against the Uighurs, the first European sanctions against China for 30 years (Euronews, 2021). In response, China adopted sanctions against European entities and MEPs with a prohibition for them to enter the Chinese territory (Reuters, 2021). It is a real ping-pong game that has been engaged by both parties: a spokesperson for the European Commission said that the sanctions against the European MEPs were “unacceptable and regrettable” and that the ratification process was paused (Deutsche Welle, 2021). Tensions are rising between the EU and China, in an international context that has made the Uyghur issue a priority.
Indeed, the 4th of May 2021, the international forum G7 brings together the Foreign Affairs Ministers of Canada, UK, US, France, Italy, Japan and Germany. During the meeting, China became a priority, and the countries “are trying to ally themselves to make China respect the international order” said Anthony Blinken. The common statement, about the Xinjiang, added that the forum reiterate its “strong opposition to any unilateral actions that could escalate tensions and undermine regional stability and the international rules-based order and express serious concerns about reports of militarization, coercion, and intimidation in the region” (CNN, 2021). The emergence of a united global front against China seems unlikely, especially given its weight in the world economy. However, tensions are rising dangerously, and it seems that the EU has chosen to take part in this opposition to the Middle Kingdom, abandoning its hopes of being a major privileged trading partner. Let’s add that France, one of the EU’s headliners, recently joined the manoeuvres of the Quad, military demonstrations of an anti-China force in order to countering Chinese expansionism composed of India, US, Australia and Japan (Courrier International, 2021).
Little by little, the contours of an international coalition are taking shape, denounced by China as the formation of an “Indo-Pacific NATO”. In this context of rising tension, it is difficult to see where the European Union is going to. One thing is certain, the relations between China and the European Union are once again the witness of a lack of cohesion at a supranational level. Until recently, member states would shut down Chinese human rights abuses if it would benefit their domestic investments. Today, the situation changed the global position toward the Chinese abuses, and the EU takes the gamble to oppose Beijing, for the first time in 30 years. This is why the EU must develop multilateral cooperation with regard to China, supported by the UN and the various international forums to pursue the country on the human rights, but must under no circumstances cut off dialogue with it entirely, on pain of openly displaying itself as one of its enemies. In keeping with its values, it must continue to denounce human rights violations while preserving peace on its continent, and thus prevent the escalation of violence. The isolation of a country, its sidelining on the international scene, can be a powerful gas pedal of tensions, so dialogue must be preserved. With this in mind, it would be wise to increase the number of diplomatic contacts. The exchange of sanctions such as the one that took place in the previous months cannot benefit any of the parties. Joe Biden had announced during his campaign that he wanted to renew the dialogue with his allies, namely China. The EU should probably, instead of trying to outmanoeuvre them, open a deeper dialogue with the US regarding China for more homogeneous, less aggressive sanctions and offer China an attractive international stage that could suit it.
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