After 50 years of diplomatic relations, what's next for EU-China cooperation?

The European Union and China are “partners, not rivals and certainly not enemies. China has always viewed and developed China-EU relations from a strategic and long-term perspective”, stated Chinese Ambassador Cai Run at the opening of our 2025 Europe-China Forum.  

Ambassador Run, Head of Mission and Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the People’s Republic of China to the European Union, also laid out a vision for future cooperation. “Like-mindedness makes for partnership,” he highlighted, “and seeking common ground while respecting differences also defines partnership.” 

The occasion of 50 years of diplomatic relations between the EU and China allowed the speakers and guests to reflect on the past, present and future of our interconnected world. 

“We should be partners looking ahead responsibly, to develop a shared understanding,” saidBruno Angelet, Ambassador of Belgium in China. 

China has invested more than 100 billion USD in the EU, and trade reaches over 800 billion USD yearly, highlighted Biwei Liu, Vice President of the China Public Diplomacy Association. “Can China leave the EU? Will China leave the EU? My personal response is no,” said Liu, stressing that neither of the two global powers can decouple from one another. From this understanding, a new common-ground framework for cooperation can be developed. 

Pascal Lamy, Coordinator of the Jacques Delors Institutes, agreed that four decades after the EU started “massive investment” in China, there is a need for “principles to guide the way. We both will benefit.” Similarly, he affirmed that “if the US wants to go protectionist, let the US go protectionist. They’ll probably pay for that, but we should not have to pay for that”, connecting it to the need for the EU and China to support the multilateral system based on institutions like the WTO. 

In positioning Brussels and Beijing as pillars of stability, cooperation is of the essence. As summed up by Jiemian Yang, Chairman of Shanghai Institutes for International Studies (SIIS) Academic Consultative Council, “there are so many things we can learn from each other”. 

This will require work on both sides. For Europe, new diplomacy should reassess its diplomatic strategy, to address a continued deficit of understanding about China. At the same time, China still has to elaborate on its vision of a multipolar world and both partners partners’ place in it.  

Presenting the European perspective on the diplomatic relationship with China, Bernd Bievert, Head of Cabinet for Trade Commissioner Sefcovic, laid out three principles of positive dialogue. 

“The first is engagement and dialogue. The second is that we are not decoupling but we are rather diversifying and derisking trade. Third, we are in a new geopolitical and economic sphere, and we must recognise some of the negative impacts to trade and defence interests,” said Bievert. 

According to Linlin Liang, Director of Communication and Research at the Chinese Chamber of Commerce to the EU, “the top three concerns of Chinese businesses operating in Europe are politics, costs of labour and innovation cooperation.” 

Jos Delbeke, former European Commission director-general for climate action, emphasised that “we work on the made with Europe kind of slogan in terms of cooperating with China in particular but also with a lot of other countries in the world”. This slogan might send a better message to our partners and reassure them that the political agenda of the EU is about derisking only.  

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