On the whole, China and the EU announced the establishment of the
Comprehensive Strategic Partnership in 2003, and it is a major force in the
development of the relations between China and EU member States. China
announced the establishment of member-state-level“strategic partnerships”with
France, the UK and a number of EU member States in Southern Europe in quick
succession between 2003 and 2005 (the strategic partnership with Germany was
established in 2010). Hence, bilateral dialogue and cooperation between countries
on trade, investment, politics, society and culture were rapidly boosted. For some,
the mechanism was formed, and for some, dialogue and exchanges were carried out
publicly and at the grassroots level, thus greatly enriching the meaning of China-EU
relations. However, the bilateral relations between China and EU member States do
not develop at the same rate: some relations develop fast, while some suffer a
negative impact from the economy (such as the impact from the European debt
crisis) or politics (such as the human rights issue, the Dalai issue, etc.). These
bilateral relations have their own features owing to the characteristics of the EU
member States or state groups, shaping a diversified structure of China-EU rela-
tions. It is fair to say that, without the development of relations between China and
EU member States, the China-EU strategic partnership would be empty, incom-
prehensive and lifeless. Therefore, it is necessary to have a detailed discussion on
China-EU relations at the level of EU member States.
The China-Germany relationship is one the forerunners of China-EU relations.
With the great momentum of the rapid development of the economy of both China
and Germany, the trade between the two countries has been increasing, and even
the globalfinancial crisis did not cause any substantial negative impact on trade
between China and Germany. China-Germany trade continued to climb in 2010
after the crisis, approaching the target of 200 billion Euros in 2015. Strongly
pushed forward by the economic and trade relationship, China and Germany
established the China-Germany“strategic partnership in global responsibility”
within the framework of the China-EU Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, held
annual summit meetings between the Premier and the Chancellor, and opened a
hotline between the top leaders of China and Germany. During the difficult time of
the globalfinancial crisis, China and Germany released the Joint Statement (2009)
for stabilizing the world economic situation and the Joint Communiqué(2010) for
comprehensively pushing forward the strategic partnership, made a strategic choice
for coping with the crisis, established the diversified government consultation
mechanisms to make comprehensive planning of 28 cooperation projects in thefield
of politics, economy, culture and society, and the exchanges infinance and banking,
science and technology, and environment were turned into cooperation.
Cooperation in the people-to-peoplefield, including higher education, vocational
education, elementary education and language education, were also energetically
carried out. Despite unsettled problems in the China-Germany relationship for a
time, such as Germany’s prejudice in human rights and the Dalai issues as well as
the disputes in trade and intellectual protection, nothing has prohibited the
China-Germany relationship from developing in a deeper, more comprehensive and
more strategic direction. When Premier Li Keqiang visited Germany in 2013, he
16 H. Zhou