Unlikely Partners?: China, the European Union and the Forging of a Strategic Partnership

211 Pages·2017·1.772 MB·English

by  Anna Michalski, Zhongqi Pan (auth.)

ANNA MICHALSKI
AND ZHONGQI PAN
UNLIKELY
PARTNERS?
China, the European Union
and the Forging of a Strategic Partnership
Unlikely Partners?
Anna Michalski • Zhongqi Pan
Unlikely Partners?
China, the European Union and the Forging of a
Strategic Partnership
Anna Michalski Zhongqi Pan
Department of Government School of International Relations and
Uppsala University Public Affairs
Uppsala, Sweden Fudan University
Shanghai, China
ISBN 978-981-10-3140-3 ISBN 978-981-10-3141-0 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-3141-0
Library of Congress Control Number: 2017931828
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F
oreword
The growing number of publications delving into the relationship between
the EU and China bears witness to the increasing interest that the Sino-
European relationship has attracted in the last two decades. Although the
number of books and other publications on the EU and China will con-
tinue to be inferior to those written on the relations between the United
States and China, there is a distinct sense among academics, practitioners,
and students of international politics of needing to know more about the
relationship between these unlikely partners. Despite the renewed inter-
est, the contemporary scholarship on EU-China relations and European
and Chinese foreign policy more widely demonstrates the difficulty to go
beyond the material dimension in analyses of the engagement between
international actors. We believe that traditional studies grounded in inter-
ests, policy analysis, or power-based accounts of the EU-China strategic
partnership cannot render justice to this intriguing relationship.
Mindful of this gap in the literature, we investigate the relations
between the EU and China by adopting a social perspective. We believe
that such a perspective is better suited to shed light on the more elusive
and deep-seated dimensions of the EU-China strategic partnership. Our
ambition is to provide a deeper and more fine-grained understanding of
the challenges that arise in the strategic partnership. To this end, we con-
sider it necessary to explore the conceptual differences that reign between
the EU and China in regard to their perceptions of prevailing norms,
worldviews, and visions of power. An analysis of the conceptual differences
makes it possible not only to gauge the limits of the relations between the
EU and China but also to probe further into the social dynamics of the
v
vi FOREWORD
partnership. This book therefore explores EU-China strategic partnership
from a social perspective in which the diplomatic interaction between the
EU and China and the social dynamic that has emerged as a result of the
efforts to influence each other’s normative and ideational stances in the
international system determine the dynamic of their engagement.
This book is the fruit of a long-standing research cooperation which
goes back to 2011 when the authors collaborated on a project on the
conceptual differences between the EU and China and their influence on
the EU-China relationship. This initial collaboration resulted in a vol-
ume published in 2012 by Palgrave Macmillan entitled Conceptual Gaps
in EU-China Relations: Global Governance, Human Rights and Strategic
Partnerships edited by Zhongqi Pan. As a logical continuation on this
work, the authors decided to delve deeper into more intangible aspects of
EU-China relations. On this basis, it was agreed to embark on an analysis
of the EU-China strategic partnership on the basis of deep-seated differ-
ences in terms of external and internal norms, power, worldviews, and
principles of international cooperation. An initial text was published by the
Swedish Institute of European Policy Studies in 2015. The research report,
entitled The EU-China Strategic Partnership: Challenges and Prospects in a
Changing World, was thoroughly revised and updated during 2016, and
a number of new texts were added to complete the current publication.
It is the hope of the authors that the present analysis of the EU-China
strategic partnership rekindles the interest in social interaction among
states and other actors in the international system and the challenges that
beset the multilateral order by the rise of new powers, of which China
is by far the most comprehensive. A social perspective on state interac-
tion in the international system highlights the challenges that arise in
the engagement between unlike actors such as the EU and China, which
both, in their respective ways, harbor ambitions to diffuse perceptions
of norms and worldviews throughout the international community —
a quest inevitably leads to competition between social orders and their
underlying norms and principles. Moreover, a social perspective opens up
a window of opportunity for the researcher to understand the complex
dynamic that characterizes the bilateral relations between the EU and
China in the strategic partnership, which they have managed to deepen
and widen despite numerous disputes and misunderstandings. From a
wider perspective, the learnings that can be drawn from the EU-China
strategic partnership are important for states and other actors in the inter-
national system as contending worldviews and norms will continue to mar
FOREWORD vii
international relations, both bilateral and multilateral. In this context, the
way in which the EU and China manage to uphold their bilateral partner-
ship, to use it to dissipate tensions, to overcome misunderstandings, and
to resolve disputes is important for the international community at large.
In Stockholm and Shanghai.
Anna Michalski and Zhongqi Pan.
A
cknowledgement
In writing this book, the authors have benefited from the support and
encouragement from a number of people to whom they would like to
extend their sincere appreciation.
To Pernilla Bäckman and Jonas Eriksson of the Swedish Institute
for European Policy Studies (SIEPS) for their encouragement and inci-
sive comments on the early drafts of the research report The EU-China
Strategic Partnership: Challenges and Prospects in a Changing World. The
authors would like to thank SIEPS for allowing them to use the texts of
the report to serve as a basis for parts of the present publication. The
authors are also grateful for the support and unswerving confidence in
the project on behalf of Professor Zhimin Chen, Dean of the School of
International Relations and Public Administration of Fudan University,
Shanghai. Furthermore, Anna Michalski would like to thank colleagues at
the Department of Government, Uppsala University, for their comments
and insightful suggestions for improvements of Chap. 2 of this book.
Zhongqi Pan would like to thank May-Britt U. Stumbaum and her col-
leagues at NFG Research Group, Otto-Suhr-Institute for Political Science,
Freie Universität Berlin, for their valuable inspiration and encouragement
that led to the writing of Chap. 4.
ix
c
ontents
1 Unlikely Partners? The EU-China Strategic Partnership
in a Changing World Order 1
2 Strategic Partnerships: A New Form of International
Engagement 11
3 The Development of EU-China Relations 41
4 Europe, China, and the Diffusion of Norms 71
5 China, Europe, and Normative Preferences on Sovereignty
and Human Rights 97
6 European and Chinese Perspectives on the 
International System 133
7 Relations Between the European Union and 
China in a Future Perspective 165
xi
xii CONTENTS
Bibliography 177
Index 195