Chapter 6
China-EU Relations in the Context
of Global Trade Governance
Liu Heng
Abstract The Engagement of China and the European Union (EU) in the WTO
global trade governance is an important part of the China-EU Comprehensive
Strategic Partnership. Since China’s accession to the WTO in 2001, China and the
EU have promoted the rapid growth of bilateral trade and the healthy development
of bilateral trade relations; moreover, they have made contributions to the good
functioning of the multilateral trading system by participating in the Doha Round
negotiations, using the WTO dispute settlement mechanism, and reviewing
respective trade policies and practices. The interaction between China and the EU
was obviously asymmetric before 2008, the EU being offensive and China defen-
sive. After that, the overall relations have been aimed towards a more reciprocal
status. However, the interaction is far from being mature and China’s capacity
needs to be improved. In the present and near future, the interaction between China
and the EU in the WTO will face some challenges.
Keywords China and the EUThe WTODoha round negotiationsTrade
dispute settlementTrade policy review
When the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) was signed in 1947,
China and the European countries of Belgium, Luxembourg, Netherlands, France
(afterwards all of these four countries became founding countries of the European
Coal and Steel Community), the UK and Czechoslovakia (separated into the Czech
Republic and Slovakia after the Cold War) were the original contracting parties.
The Kuomintang Authorities retreated to Taiwan and withdrew from the GATT in
the name of the“Republic of China”in 1950. China launched negotiations designed
to make China rejoin the GATT in 1986. In the same year, the Uruguay Round of
the GATT negotiations was launched; China and the European Community par-
ticipated in this round of negotiations during the whole process. These negotiations
L. Heng (&)
Institute of European Studies, CASS, Luxembourg City, Luxembourg
©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_6
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