Chapter 2
China-EU Political Relations
Jingkun Li, Chen Zhao, Lei Zhang, Hui Cao and Haiyang Zhang
Abstract China and the EU established the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership
in 2003. In recent years, after having experienced successively a“honeymoon”and
a period of adjustment, China-EU relations are now running smoothly. In this
context, this paperfirst makes a general review of the three stages in the bilateral
relationships, after which it discusses the roles of the China-EU political dialogues
and the attitudes of the major EU institutions and actors towards China, and con-
ducts a case study of the bilateral cooperation in the areas of security, defense and
crisis management as well as in the human rights dialogue. In the conclusion, this
paper believes that no great changes will take place in future China-EU relations
while, at the same time, there will probably still be twists and turns.
Keywords Comprehensive strategic partnershipChina-EU summitEU insti-
tutionsCooperation in security and defenseHuman rights dialogue
2.1 The Three Stages of China-EU Political Relations
During the Period 2003– 2013
China-EU political relations have undergone a“honeymoon period”, a period of
adjustment and a period of restoration and progressive development in the years
2003 – 2013.
J. Li (&)C. ZhaoL. ZhangH. Cao
European Political Research Office, Institute of European Studies,
CASS, Beijing, China
H. Zhang
Editorial Department, CASS, Beijing, China
©Social Sciences Academic Press and Springer Science+Business Media Singapore 2017
H. Zhou (ed.),China-EU Relations, Research Series on the Chinese Dream
and China’s Development Path, DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-1145-0_2
35