scholarly journals No Common Ground: A Spatial-Relational Analysis of EU-China Relations

Author(s):  
Katja Levy ◽  
Ágota Révész

AbstractIt is no secret that EU member states cannot come to terms on a unified China-policy. Most studies on EU-China relations come to the conclusion that disagreement exists and that this fragmentation is utilized by Chinese foreign policy in a kind of divide and rule strategy. However, the question as to why the EU members disagree has not been answered satisfactorily. This paper investigates the reasons for this discord from the perspective of the core-periphery theory. We illustrate how the spatial position of nations within Europe–in a geographical and political sense–shapes their outlook on China. As a case study to illustrate the differences in the outlook on China of among EU member countries, we analyse the discourses on Chinese COVID-19 vaccines in the Hungarian and German press from April 2020 until summer 2021. We argue that these differences have their grounds in the spatial-relational positioning at either the core or the semi-periphery of the EU. Based on our findings we suggest that a sustainable EU China-policy has first to address these differences in foreign policy outlook and then find a common ground.

2020 ◽  
pp. 107-123
Author(s):  
Boris Litwin

With the 2019 EU–China Strategic Outlook, the EU has revalidated its dual perspective on China as cooperation partner and strategic competitor at the same time. So far, considerations of China in EU and EU Member States have primarily focused on economic questions. However, as China‘s foreign policy becomes more assertive and visible via military deployments in the EU‘s geopolitical neighbourhood, the EU needs to confront this challenge by giving appropriate and concrete political responses in a geostrategic context as well. Based on the concept of „coopetition“, this article provides an analysis and subsequent recommendations on how the EU can integrate the “China factor” in its Common Security and Defence Policy, while ensuring that a balance of cooperation and competition in EU’s China policy is retained


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 237 ◽  
Author(s):  
Radka MacGregor Pelikánová

The commitment of the European Union (EU) to Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is projected into EU law about annual reporting by businesses. Since EU member states further develop this framework by their own domestic laws, annual reporting with CSR information is not unified and only partially mandatory in the EU. Do all European businesses report CSR information and what public declaration to society do they provide with it? The two main purposes of this paper are to identify the parameters of this annual reporting duty and to study the CSR information provided by the 10 largest Czech companies in their annual statements for 2013–2017. Based on legislative research and a teleological interpretation, the current EU legislative framework with Czech particularities is presented and, via a case study exploring 50 annual reports, the data about the type, extent and depth of CSR is dynamically and comparatively assessed. It appears that, at the minimum, large Czech businesses satisfy their legal duty and e-report on CSR to a similar extent, but in a dramatically different quality. Employee matters and adherence to international standards are used as a public declaration to society more than the data on environmental protection, while social matters and research and development (R&D) are played down.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 129-147
Author(s):  
Song Lilei ◽  
Bian Sai

International public health cooperation has always been one of the typical issues of bilateral and multilateral diplomatic ties in the international community. As two important actors in the international community, China and the EU have worked on many transnational public health cooperation projects. The two-level division of the EU's foreign policy competence decided the Cooperation and Challenges on Public Health between China-EU. Cooperation with the EU member states is expanding, the cooperation with the level of the EU started to show up. Since the outbreak of COVID-19, both China and the EU have publicly expressed their support for WHO's anti-pandemic measures. China has actively provided public health aid to Central and Eastern European countries and shared the Anti-COVID-19 experience. In this article, the author reviewed the progress and mechanism of China-EU public health cooperation, discussed how China and the EU have jointly dealt with the pandemic by sharing experience, providing aids, strengthening multilateralism and international cooperation, and building a community with a healthy future for humankind since the outbreak of COVID-19. Facing the COVID-19,China-EU health cooperation should be further strengthened to show the importance of a community with a shared future for humanity.


2020 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 146-154
Author(s):  
Ines Kersan-Škabić

The heterogeneity of economic performances in the EU member states is one of the main reasons for the existence of a “core-periphery” relationship. The goal of this research is to examine various economic indicators to reveal possible divisions between the EU members. This issue emphasized the contribution of rich “core” countries to the imbalances in poorer “peripheral” EU members. By applying cluster methodology and considering the most recent data, two groups of countries were identified, the first comprising 11 countries that form the “centre” or the “core”, and the rest of the EU forming the “periphery”. Considering differences between these countries is necessary and justified for discussions about the future development of the EU that will involve differences between member states.


2019 ◽  
Vol 239 ◽  
pp. 656-678
Author(s):  
Imad Mansour

AbstractThis article demonstrates the growing adaptability of Chinese foreign policy to Gulf states’ expectations around issues that implicate them directly or are relevant (such as relations with the US, and the wars in Yemen and Syria). Gulf states reacted positively because China's approach incrementally integrated local demands in its strategizing, especially by finding common ground with Gulf states despite their own differences; China has done so while not being tied to a “hegemonic idea” (i.e. it is not trying to control or define Gulf politics). China's incrementalist and non-hegemonic regional approach significantly increased Gulf states’ acceptance of its interventions, adapted to Gulf states’ expectations, and, crucially, has been altering what these states expect of major powers in general. The article concludes by proposing that unfolding Gulf politics in light of the June 2017 GCC crisis is very likely to present China with multiple opportunities to demonstrate the adroitness of its strategic choices vis-à-vis the region.


Significance However, member states have the dominant foreign policy role in the EU. After Brexit, that will be France and Germany despite the United Kingdom insisting that it wants to maintain as close a relationship with the EU as possible. Impacts EU reformers will light on foreign policy as an area to drive forwarded integration. However, the EEAS lacks the competencies and institutional horsepower to be a force for integration. The strategic needs of the 27 post-Brexit EU members will be various, thus acting as a drag on integration. Smaller EU member states will see more advantage than larger ones in collectively pursuing foreign policy goals through Brussels. Larger member states will be unwilling to submit their national defence policies to greater EU authority.


2010 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 86-100 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emma Haddad

AbstractWhile humanitarian intervention in cases of state instability remains a disputed concept in international law, there is consensus in the international community over the need to provide protection to refugees, one of the corollaries of such instability. Using the European Union (EU) as a case study, this article takes a policy perspective to examine competing conceptions of both 'responsibility' and 'protection' among EU Member States. Responsibility can be seen either as the duty to move refugees around the EU such that each Member State takes its fair share, or the duty to assist those Member States who receive the highest numbers of migrants due to geography by way of practical and financial help. Similarly, protection can imply that which the EU offers within its boundaries, encompassed within the Common European Asylum System, or something broader that looks at where people are coming from and seeks to work with countries of origin and transit to provide protection outside the Union and tackle the causes of forced migration. Whether one or both of these concepts comes to dominate policy discourse over the long-term, the challenge will be to ensure an uncompromised understanding of protection among policy-makers.


10.28945/2604 ◽  
2003 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kay Fielden

This paper describes a qualitative participatory research project conducted at the National Advisory Committee on Computing Qualifications Conference in New Zealand (NACCQ2002). Data was gathered at a dynamic poster session. Results obtained indicated that majority of computing academics in the polytechnic community in New Zealand regard themselves as teaching in the core overlapping areas of Software Engineering, Computer Science and Information Systems, regardless of their professional affiliation. Most participants taught subjects that lay within the Information Systems area; very few positioned themselves in the exclusively Computer Science or Software Engineering areas, or in the ove r-lap between Software Engineering and Computer. Results from this research are discussed in the paper.


2021 ◽  
Vol 101 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-51
Author(s):  
Pavel Kandel ◽  

Theme of the paper: the confrontation between the government and opposition forces with regard to the parliamentary elections of August 30, 2020. The paper analyzes the factors behind the opposition's first victory through the prism of the thirty year-long period. The author gives credit to the MontenegrinPrimorye Metropolia of the Serbian Orthodox Church, which made a decisive contribution to the defeat of the incumbent authorities, i.e. the politically disoriented President and the government who entered into conflict with the hierarchs through their arrogant and short-sighted monopoly rule. It was precisely the Church circles led by the late Metropolitan Amphilochius who managed to consolidate the ever-quarreling opposition, give them a new promising leader and offer an effective political platform that made the unification of the proEuropean and Pro-Serbian parts of the opposition possible. The paper examines the international reaction to the transfer of power and its internal and foreign policy consequences. Chances of the new Cabinet of experts summoned by Zdravko Krivokapic to complete a full time are not too high. The trouble of the present coalition is not only its slim – by only one Assembly mandate – majority. The majority itself is extremely fragile, since the leaders of the Democratic Front, which forms the core of its pro-Serbian part, do not hide their feeling of being deceived and deprived of the division of trophies. Thereby they consider holding a snap parliamentary election almost a single task of the Cabinet. However, the government is already able to start dismantling the existing authoritarian regime of Milo Djukanovic. As far as its foreign policy is concerned it can be assumed that the new authorities would try to normalize relations with Serbia and Russia, deliberately damaged by Milo Djukanovic, but the fundamentals of the priority relations with the EU and NATO will remain unchanged.


Author(s):  
A.Zh. Seitkhamit ◽  
◽  
S.M. Nurdavletova

The European Union dynamically exercises various forms and methods of the Soft Power in its foreign policy. The article reviews its main principles and characteristics as well as conceptual basics. As an example, the article considers the European cultural diplomacy in the Republic of Kazakhstan as a method of soft power. The authors pay an attention specific actions of the European cultural diplomacy in Kazakhstan as well as the mechanisms of its implementation. Apart from that, cultural soft power of two European countries – France and Germany – are considered as separate actions of the EU member states in the sphere of culture. Finally, it assesses importance of Kazakhstan for the EU and effectiveness of such policy in this country.


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