China-EU Relations in a multilateral framework or by adding third-party factors, as
Chen Zhimin, Feng Shaolei and Xiong Hou did in their articles entitledChina, the
US and Europe: Cooperation and Competition in the New Trilateral Relationship,
Structural Changes of the EU-Russia-US Trilateral Relationship and Its Future
Tendency, and Trade Relations Among China, Europe and Africa and Their
Development Prospectsrespectively.^27 This book takes a third-party perspective to
the extent of comparing China-EU relations with the EU-US relations and it pro-
vides an analysis of the cooperation in politics, rules of economics, civil aspects,
science and technology, etc. in these two bilateral relationships with the view of
examining the nature of China-EU relations and the differences between them and
EU-US relations.
From the perspective of political relations, neither China-EU relations nor
EU-US relations are beleaguered by disagreements in terms of geopolitical inter-
ests; however, a special relationship based on a military and political alliance is
maintained, and a transatlantic security system^28 based on common values has been
established between the EU and the USA, while an organization similar to NATO is
impossible between China and the EU. There is a strategic dialogue mechanism
specially targeted at China, namely“a transatlantic strategic dialogue concerning
China”at the level of under secretary of state/deputy foreign affairs minister
between the EU and the USA, while a coordination mechanism similar to this but
targeted at the USA is unavailable between China and the EU. Both the EU and the
USA constantly claim that they have shared values and similar social systems,
while both of them consider China as“a country with a heterogenous culture”and
are concerned about the rapid development of China to varying degrees. They also
hope create a China with Western values. Electronic surveillance of many European
allies by the USA in recent years has fully indicated hegemony-subordination
interest conflicts and a lack of trust between the EU and the USA. Nevertheless, the
overall degree of trust between the EU and the USA is still higher than that between
China and the EU. Though an extensive cooperative and win-win relationship in
“non-traditional political”fields exists between China and the EU and a relationship
in somefields between both sides is strategic in nature, a China-EU Strategic
Partnership cannot be comparable to a relationship between the EU and the USA in
traditional politicalfields.
In non-traditional politicalfields, both China-EU relations and EU-US relations
have resulted in wide-ranging and in-depth cooperation in various sectors, but each
relationship presents its own characteristics. Priorities of the EU-US cooperation lie
in standardizing global market rules and technical standards, including coordinating
positions targeted at third parties in thefields of trade and raw materials; both sides
also engage in very close and deep cooperation in the high-techfield. China-EU
(^27) These three articles are included inChanging Images of Europechiefly edited by Hong Zhou,
Social Sciences Academic Press, 2013.
(^28) Speech by G. Robertson at the Annual Session of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly,
Amsterdam, 15 November 1999, NATO Speeches, http://www.nato.int/docu/speech/1999/
s991115a.htm.
20 H. Zhou