Topic:

Navigating Uncertainty: The Future of EU-China Relations

Speaker:

Dr Mikko Huotari
Executive Director, Mercator Institute for China Studies (MERICS)

Date & Time:

Thursday, 25 May 2023
4:00 pm – 5:30 pm (Singapore Time)
Time Zone Converter

Video recording:

Please click on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8eft_ebEj8 or visit EAI’s YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/EastAsianInstituteNUS.

Abstract:

Europe’s China policy is in flux. The EU and China have a deep and long-standing relationship.  Some EU members were among the first countries in the world to recognise the People’s Republic of China, and since China resumed its membership of the UN in 1972, relationships have rapidly expanded.  Economic relationships have intensified after China joined the World Trade Organisation in 2001.  China is now the EU’s largest trading partner (third largest export market) and European companies are among the largest foreign investors in China.  In recent years, while economic relationships have continued to deepen, political tensions have grown. In its 2019 “Strategic Outlook on China”, the EU considers China simultaneously, in different policy areas, a cooperation partner, a negotiating partner with whom the EU needs to find a balance of interests, an economic competitor and a systemic rival promoting alternative models of governance. Since then, the EU has not only taken measures to develop its policy “toolbox” to deal with some of the (economic) challenges posed by China. A Comprehensive Agreement on Investment was put on hold amidst the imposition of sanctions on both sides. China’s perceived Russia-leaning stance, despite the invasion of Ukraine, has further increased tensions. While bilateral diplomatic and business interactions have deepened again after the 20th Party Congress and the end of Zero-COVID policy in China, uncertainty over the trajectory of EU-China policy has increased. Against this backdrop, EU Commission President Von der Leyen’s recent China speech not only took a stronger stance on various aspects of the relationship but also concluded that de-risking rather than decoupling was the way forward.  Considering this, how will the EU’s China policy likely evolve? What will “de-risking” mean for the economic, diplomatic and other relations between EU and China? What balance will the EU strike between cooperation, competition and rivalry with China? These and other questions will be discussed in Dr Huotari’s lecture.

About the Speaker:

Mikko Huotari is the Executive Director of MERICS. His research focuses on China’s political and economic development, foreign policy, China-Europe relations, as well as global (economic) governance and competition. He has published on China’s rise as a financial power, trade and investment relations with Europe as well as on geopolitical shifts related to China’s emergence as a global security actor. Huotari studied in Freiburg, Nanjing and Shanghai. He holds a PhD from Freiburg University and was a guest scholar at the University of California in San Diego in 2017/2018. In 2019, Mikko was appointed as one of 15 German representatives to the German-Chinese Dialogue Forum.