implement social and employment policies conducive to wiping out poverty while
boosting international trade; the EU also admired China for its efforts in over-
coming difficulties in order to fulfill WTO commitments and obligations; the EU
believed that China-EU bilateral trade had developed rapidly thanks to China’s
accession to the WTO and its future growth potential was huge; the EU stated that
there was a very high degree of mutual dependence on each other on the part of
both sides and that both sides were important partners in the WTO. In its 2010
review, the EU said that“China has continuously integrated into the world econ-
omy, has achieved economic transformation and has played increasingly important
roles in international trade since its accession to the WTO”,“China has moved from
being an emerging economy to a global economic power, and has indisputable
economic and commercial influence on global affairs”.
The EU’s positive attitude towards China mirrored the reality that China’s
economy and trade were growing rapidly, bilateral economic contacts had become
increasingly close and trade relations were gradually developing in a benevolent
way after China’s accession to the WTO; trade relations were also closely related to
the overall situation of China-EU relations and the general trend of international
relations.
Thefirst review concerning China in 2006 focused on China’s fulfillment of its
WTO commitments; supporting China’s integration into the multilateral trade
system was in the interest of the EU, thus the EU offered encouragement to China.
When the second review was conducted in 2008, which marked the 7th anniversary
of China’s accession to the WTO, while China had basically gotten on the right
track, the EU and the USA concurrently raised the evaluation criteria, and shifted
their focus on China’s trade policy to consistency between China’s domestic eco-
nomic and trade policy and the WTO rules; they also required China to assume
more responsibilities in world economy and in the multilateral trade system. They
were highly critical of China and started changing attitudes. Afterwards, the global
financial crisis broke out, the global economy experienced a recession and recov-
ered slowly, and subsequently the European debt crisis occurred and it has not
bottomed out yet. With increasing dependence on China, the EU improved its
attitude towards China. In its 2010 review, the EU set a higher value on China than
the WTO for China’s roles in the WTO and China’s performance in addressing the
financial and economic crisis; in its 2012 review, the EU even praised China for its
performance in the Doha Round.
Of course, the EU did not praise China merely for the sake of praising; instead,
the EU intended to require China to further greatly open its market to satisfy its
interest concerns and assume more responsibilities in the WTO, and cooperate more
with the EU in the world economy. Overall, the EU’s evaluation of China’s per-
formance after China’s accession to the WTO was better than that conducted by the
USA.^20
(^20) Although they shared many common concerns about China, their requirements for China became
increasingly fair.
6 China-EU Relations in the Context of Global Trade Governance 131