The Impact of European and Chinese Soft Power on Regional and Global Governance

This chapter returns to issues raised by other authors in this section: the contrast between European, Chinese, and US perceptions of hard and soft power in the contexts of regional and global governance. Taking the ASEM process as a case, it shows how Europeans and Asians have approached the interaction from different institutional perspectives. Despite this, it sees ASEM as a process that reflects, and promotes, the advance of regional institutionalism in East Asia, adding an important dimension to the Europe–China relationship. This is then contrasted with the US strategy of dual divergence: a divergent internal strategy that rejects institutionalism for managing regional security; and an external divergent strategy that rejects the building of shared and reciprocal institutions between the USA and Asia. The chapter concludes that Europe's ‘balancing by convergence’ strategy has advantages over the USA's ‘balancing by divergence’ strategy.

Contrast in the Security Concepts of China and the EU: The Perspective of a PLA Officer

This chapter presents the perspectives of officers in the People's Liberation Army (PLA). It provides an analytical review of the two security concepts that have emerged in response to the post Cold War order. It holds that China's security policy is designed first and foremost to safeguard the sovereignty, unity, and territorial integrity of the nation under the paradoxical conditions of globalization. Although recognizing the mutuality of security, the purpose of China's policy is to gain other actors' support for the defence of China's sovereign interests. The EU's core interests are defined in terms of ‘a stronger international society, well functioning international institutions and a rule-based international order’. This also recognizes the mutuality of security but does not place sovereignty as the absolute good: if international society, institutions, and order require the mitigation of sovereignty, then Europeans will accept it.

The EU and China: Partners in Effective Multilateralism?

This chapter considers the EU's ambition to enmesh China in a system of effective multilateralism in pursuit of global public goods. It notes that China's position on both multilateralism and universal goods to be contingent: China favours these engagements and goals to the extent that they restrain and commit others, but is much more conservative if they require restraint or commitment on its own part. China's reservations derive mostly from the behaviour of the United States: if the world's predominant military and economic power is a contingent multilateralist, can the rising power of China do otherwise? Until there is more evidence to the contrary, this chapter concludes that China's commitment to multilateralism cannot form a ‘reliable basis for long-term EU policy planning towards China’.

The EU–China ‘Strategic Dialogue’: Pathways in the International System

By examining the strategic dialogue process, this chapter conducts a wider evaluation across time and the issue areas of the relationship. It provides a careful textual analysis of the discourse mechanisms that Europe and China are using to develop their political language; but it also points to the gaps, inconsistencies, and slippages between what is being said and what is being understood. The discussion considers the emergent actors to be seeking pathways in a fluid international environment, in which they sometimes seem to be on parallel paths, at other times on divergent ones, with the result that it cannot easily be deduced at this stage whether these pathways will lead to a common end destination or not. Still, if liberalism-functionalism has any credence, then EU multilateralism may also be encouraging similar multilateralism trends in China.

Promoting the Deeper Development of China–EU Relations

In order to promote the further deepening of relations, this chapter provides a critical examination of four major issue areas: the nature of strategic partnerships, the particularity of Europe as an international actor, the resolution of the arms embargo issue, and the granting of China's market economy status. Nevertheless, China as a sovereign and unitary actor will still find itself having to negotiate the complexities of the multi-level, multi-mode European relationship, a factor rendered all the more difficult by the enlargement process. The discussion identifies two further obstacles to deepening: the role of the USA in influencing the position of European member states towards the arms embargo; and the question of China's poor governance record on intellectual property rights, which may be the most significant barrier to market economy status.

Chinese Television Coverage and Chinese Perceptions of Sino-EU Relations

This chapter employs a quantitative and qualitative analysis of Chinese television coverage of China–Europe relations to examine many of the outstanding issues of the moment. It notes that reports and comment on Europe and European relations occupy around 10 per cent of coverage on the main news programmes and that most views of Europe are positive, and this in turn may have some kind of impact on the policymaking process in China, though more research needs to be conducted. Overall, however, the chapter concludes that the Chinese understanding of Europe is quite limited, partial, and narrow. Their attention to Europe is confined to international affairs, economic achievements, and natural landscapes. They still consider Europe a remote landmass, with little relevance to their daily lives and personal interests apart from the impacts of Sino–European economic and trade relations.

Comparative Regionalism: The Logic of Governance in Europe and East Asia

This chapter discusses the logics of regionalism in Europe and Asia, comparing European institutional governance with East Asian cultural/ethical governance. It notes that these are not antinomies: both rules and culture are used by those in power to regulate not just what people can do, but what they can be. Where Europeans and Asians differ first is in the sequencing of these alternative logics. Europeans have got themselves in a position where the ethics and culture of being ‘European’ are largely interpreted in the context of institutional conformity. Asians conversely regard institutional conformity as threatening and privilege regional arrangements that defend ethical and cultural integrity. Europe's supranational politics operate from the centre to the periphery; Asia's transnational politics operate from the periphery to the centre.

EU–China Security Relations: The ‘Softer’ Side

This chapter states the question starkly: between two such mismatched partners, is it not natural to wonder whether someone is being fooled and someone profiting unduly. The discussion then proceeds to an audit of Chinese–European interaction in areas of security restraint, whether defined in terms of issues (demilitarization, non-proliferation, confidence-building, and peace-keeping) or levels (Asian sub-regional and regional, inter-regional, and global). It concludes that the China–Europe security relationship ‘works’ because of its limits: items on the agenda are limited; China's accommodation of EU goals is limited; the process is limited in its functionalism; and the limits of the EU's ‘soft engagement’ are not revealed because of the ‘hard engagement’ taking place in different parts. Yet it would not be good if hard engagement stood alone; so Europe should intensify its strategy of mutual binding.

Diplomacy for Integration: The Economic Aspect of Chinese Foreign Policy

This chapter provides an overview of China's new economic diplomacy and the interaction between economic and political statecraft under globalization. Although in the past China adopted a ‘politics first’ approach to economic relations, now the economic priorities of China's development take clear precedence. This has three main implications. The first is that, under the ‘going out’ strategy, China has much more in the way of society-society relations than in the past. Second, in geographical terms, China is increasingly focused on regional integration and new forms of developing world cooperation. Third, China's diplomacy is increasingly pluralistic: both meeting obligations under existing rules and regimes but gradually reforming these in its own interests.

Between Regionalism and World Order: Five Structural Factors in China–Europe Relations to 2025

This chapter examines five structural factors within which the EU–China relationship will operate in the next generation. These are: interdependence and competition in a globalizing world economy; the contrast between European structuralism and Asian organicism; the regionalization of Eurasian security; the contentious politics of Central Eurasia; and the structural contradiction between the US ‘global state’ and the European and Asian ‘region-states’. In putting forward these factors Kerr is echoing the arguments of several other contributors: interdependence and competition; structuralism and organicism; security inter-regionalization; and questions of triangularity. Thus, though open to diverse interpretation, these factors seem to constitute the beginning of an ‘agenda’ in the international politics of EU–China relations.