The EU-China Strategic Partnership-Political Rhetoric versus Reality

The parameters of the EU-China relationship are now officially based on implementing their so-called ‘strategic partnership’. But is it true to say that the EU’s China strategy is ‘naïve’ or ‘unrealistic’ in this regard, as some European as well as American academics and analysts have argued over the last three years?1 The democratic EU, these critics argue, differs too much from non-democratic and autocratic China in its approaches towards the conduct of foreign and security policies, global governance and international security. The EU Commission and the EU Council, on the other hand, maintain that engaging China politically and economically is still the wisest if not indeed the only possible course of action, as China is now a global economic, political and military force to be reckoned with, and is likely to become even more powerful in the future. Arguably, three years after the EU announced its ‘strategic partnership’ with China, there is still a lack of understanding on the goals and objectives of the envisioned partnership, beyond the expansion of bilateral business and trade relations. What are the EU’s objectives in implementing the ‘strategic partnership’ and to what extent is Brussels willing to compromise its own values and foreign and security policy principles for the sake of expanding relations on all levels with a country whose human rights record is still questionable at best? What, on the other hand, does Beijing for its part expect from its ‘strategic partners’ in Brussels, how in Beijing’s view does engagement with the EU impact on China’s economic and social development and, last but not least, how seriously does Beijing take the EU as global foreign and security policy actor and partner?