discussions with China on promoting cooperation between Chinese and British
banks and on the establishment of an RMB offshore settlement center in London.^15
A London RMB Offshore Settlement Center would be conducive to increasing the
width and breadth of the Britishfinancial market, adding more products, intro-
ducing the RMB into the globalfinancial market and facilitating bilateral trade and
investments between China and the EU. A series of measures designed to jointly
improve and optimize the creation of afinancial market environment between
China and the EU reflect an increasingly deepening development of China-EU
financial investment cooperation.
However, some EU member states and the media strongly resist investments
made by Chinese state-owned enterprises in Europe, especially their acquisitions in
some strategic industries. A comment entitledDangerous Dependencepublished in
the German newspaper“Die Welt”claimed that Europe should take care not to fall
into permanent dependence on China. According to the British“Daily Mail”, the
European Debt Crisis presented the best opportunity for China to seek expansion of
its influence in Europe.^16 These comments adversely affected China’s development
of investments in Europe.
3.3 Surplus in China-EU Trade
China suffered a trade deficit with the EU at all times before 1997 and has enjoyed a
trade surplus since 1997. After China’s accession to the WTO, surplus dramatically
expanded, and disputes about the trade disparity between China and the EU have
become increasingly frequent, accompanied by more and more trade disputes.
Disputes about trade disparity were initially manifested in data differences.
According to statistics from the Chinese side, China’s trade surplus with the EU was
19.1 billion USD in 2003, while statistics from the EU side showed a deficit of
64.2 billion EUR. The difference was great. The statistical difference resulted from
technical factors including declaration standards, exchange rate, etc. The enlargement
of the EU in the period 2004–2006 disturbed the statistics on both sides to some extent.
After the enlargement, data of both sides became relatively approximate.
Statistics from the Chinese side indicated that the surplus in China-EU trade was
160.18 billion USD in 2008, only less than Chinese Mainland’s surplus with Hong
Kong and the USA, while statistics from the EU side showed that the trade deficit
hit an all-time high—169.54 billion EUR. As indicated in Fig.3.5, afterwards,
subject to the impact from the globalfinancial crisis, the China-EU trade surplus
sharply decreased to 100 billion USD in 2009, and it rose somewhat in the period
2010 – 2011, hovering at 140 billion USD, while it shrank to 121.9 billion USD in
2012.
(^15) http://finance.ifeng.com/news/hqcj/20120117/5465311.shtml.
(^16) http://news.sina.com.cn/o/2010-12-29/090421726235.shtml.
78 C. Xin