multiple levels and on multiple issues. However, given restrictions from different
powers and functions in the EU’s system and mechanism, China-EU cooperation
cannot only be limited to the EU institutions in Brussels. EU member states are
imbued with enormous forces for striving for a healthy development of China-EU
relations, which serve as inexhaustible resources for deepening and enriching those
relations.(V) Both China and the EU should work together to promote construction of fair
and rational global trade and investment rules
One of major issues and great challenges for cooperation sustained by China-EU
relations in the next decade is how to cope with changes in global trade and
investment rules, and thus jointly commit to fairness and the rationalization of rules.
This is also an important opportunity for deepening the development of the
China-EU Strategic Partnership. Current development of the global economy
reveals that an age of WTO and FTA coexistence has come. A multilateral trade
organization is a fair and efficient mechanism but also a mechanism under which
decision-making is slow, and it is very difficult and time-consuming to balance the
interests of multiple stakeholders. Though multiple bilateral trade negotiations are
expeditiously pushed forward, the effects from governmental drive and geopolitical
considerations make it difficult to completely eliminate non-economic and exclu-
sive factors in bilateral trade arrangements. Under such circumstances, as the most
important trading partners in the global trade pattern, both China and the EU should
jointly envision the future of a global economic and trade order. China and the EU
are expected to have more engagements, cooperation and even achieve a win-win
outcome in the international multilateral trade and investment system in the next
decade.
(VI) China and the EU will increasingly conduct cooperation on global and
multilateral occasions
In an age of rapid globalization, the roles and mutual relations of China and the EU
are crucial, even indispensable, whether in such international organizations as the
United Nations, the World Trade Organization, world development agencies, etc. or
in multilateral economic cooperation, international security, internationalfinancial
systems, etc., or in suchfields as energy, climate, the environment, etc. The next
decade will witness not only more and more mutual cooperation in globalfields
between China and the EU, but also increasing trilateral cooperation among China,
the EU and the USA, among China, the EU and Africa, among China, the EU and
Russia, etc. Though there are diverse interests and appeals, even multiple bilateral
confrontations or struggles among China, the EU and the USA, trilateral relations
may also move towards exchanges and cooperation on the global stage and issues
concerning common interests for human beings.
Overall, China-EU relationsflourish on a solid foundation, but they are also
subject to huge challenges. Asymmetrical institutional structures, differences in
value concepts, insufficient mutual understanding, etc. between China and the EU
1 An Overview of the China-EU Strategic Partnership (2003–2013) 29