fields covered by political dialogues fall within the competence of the EU member
states on the other hand, China-EU political dialogue is based on a relativelyflexile
“soft-law mechanism”built on the“soft approach”rather than on the form of a
bilateral agreement, that is, the “hard-law approach”. Without a legal basis,
although such a“soft approach”or“soft mechanism”does not produce any legal
effect and“does not even take the form recognized by laws”, it does possess a stable
structure and functions acknowledged by both sides, which can thus bring about
actual effects in most cases, and even legal effects.^16 Currently, in the context of
China-EU relations, the soft mechanism and the soft approach have developed to an
“unprecedented” degree^17 and have constituted an important foundation for
China-EU political dialogue.
China and the EU signed an agreement for political dialogue in 1994, under
which a structured framework for political dialogue was established. During the 2nd
ASEM Summit in 1998 leaders from both sides decided to set up a mechanism for
an annual meeting and the 1st China-EU Summit was held in the same year. Since
then, the China-EU Summit has been institutionalized. In 2002, both sides estab-
lished the formal legal basis for such political dialogues by an exchange of letters.
With the continuous development of China-EU relations, political dialogues
between the two sides have covered almost allfields concerning not only bilateral
issues, but also global issues such as nuclear non-proliferation, Asia’s security,
global warming, the crackdown on illegal immigration and human trafficking, etc.
China-EU political dialogue has laid the foundation for further cooperation in the
economicfield and people-to-people exchanges. China-EU political dialogue is
conducted at the followingfive levels^18 : (1) Summit meetings; (2) high-level
strategic dialogue; (3) ministerial meetings, including biannual meetings between
the Chinese foreign minister and the ambassadors from the EU member states in
China; annual meetings between the Chinese Foreign Minister and the EU’s
counterparts during the General Assembly of the United Nations, as well as
meetings held between the EU’s“troika”foreign affairs ministers and the Chinese
Foreign Affairs Minister according to specific needs at any time; annual meetings
between the EU’s“troika”officials in charge of global political affairs and regional
affairs and Chinese officials in charge of the corresponding affairs; and biannual
meetings between the foreign affairs minister of the rotating EU presidency and the
Chinese ambassador to the rotating EU presidency; (4) dialogues on special topics
including security, defense, crisis management, African affairs, development issues,
human rights, etc.; (5) regular expert-level dialogues covering Asian affairs, nuclear
non-proliferation, the export of conventional weapons, and cyber security, etc. The
dialogues at expert level play an important role in preventing the unpleasant
(^16) Snyder et al. ( 2013 , p. 573).
(^17) Snyder et al. ( 2013 , p. 575).
(^18) For an overview of the China-EU political dialogue, see the website of the EU’s delegation in
Chinahttp://eeas.europa.eu/delegations/china/eu_china/political_relations/pol_dialogue/index_zh.
htm, or the website of European External Action Service“EU-China Dialogue Architecture-Main
Elements,”http://eeas.europa.eu/china/docs/eu_china_dialogue_en.pdf.
2 China-EU Political Relations 41