China-EU_Relations_Reassessing_the_China-EU_Comprehensive_Strategic_Partnership

plans. As the regular consultation mechanism at the highest level in the area of
economics and trade between China and the EU, the China-EU High-level
Economic and Trade Dialogue was officially launched and thefirst meeting was
held in Beijing in April, 2008.^3 According to an agreement reached by the two
sides, this dialogue is held once a year and organized by the two sides by turns. In
the third China-EU High-level Economic and Trade Dialogue in 2010, both sides
reaffirmed intensified coordination and cooperation in global economic governance
platforms such as the Group of 20 (G20) Summit, etc. and joint efforts in promoting
reforms of internationalfinancial rules and standards. Furthermore, the original
fiscal andfinancial dialogue mechanism also continues working. The 7th China-EU
Fiscal and Financial Dialogue was held in Brussels in 2012, in which the two sides
conducted in-depth discussions about the macroeconomic situation and policies, the
response to the European debt crisis, the G20 and internationalfinancial reforms,
thefinancial supervision reform, accounting audit cooperation, government pro-
curement, etc.; many important consensuses were reached.^4
With the impact from the globalfinancial crisis, China and the EU also inten-
sified their cooperation at the multilateral level. The greatest change in global
financial governance amid the 2008 globalfinancial crisis was that the G20 replaced
the G7 to become the most important governance mechanism in international
financial affairs, and that the world was ushering in the“G20”era. The most
prominent characteristic of the G20 lies in incorporating emerging countries,
including China, etc. into internationalfinancial governance, which reverses the
imbalance of strength and powers in the internationalfinancial system to some
extent. The pattern in which the major developed countries monopolized interna-
tionalfinancial affairs in the 40 years after the collapse of the Bretton Woods
System has basically come to an end.^5 China and the EU have started cooperating
on this new exchange platform, for example, by supporting the EU’s response to the

Table 7.2 Important China-EU exchange mechanisms in globalfinancial governance since
the crisis

Bilateral Multilateral (intersection) Multilateral

(non-intersection)

China China-EU leaders’annual

meeting mechanism;

China-EU high-level

economic and trade

dialogue; China-EU

financial dialogue

mechanism

The G20 summit;

The Basel Committee on

banking supervision;

The international monetary

fund exchange framework,

e.g. the IMF and the World

Bank annual meeting

BRICs leaders’

meeting

Europe G7, G8 summit

(^3) Baidu Encyclopedia: explanation of nouns “China-EU High-level Economic and Trade
Dialogue”,http://baike.baidu.com/view/2429029.htm.
(^4) The 7th China-EU Fiscal and Financial Dialogue, http://money.163.com/12/0603/05/
8326ETJE00253B0H.html.
(^5) Li ( 2013 ).
7 China-EU Relations in the Context of Global Financial Governance 145