China–European Union relations

Based on Wikipedia: China–European Union relations

In March 2019, the European Union officially declared China to be four things at once: a cooperation partner, a negotiating partner, an economic competitor, and a systemic rival. That single sentence captures the bewildering complexity of one of the world's most consequential relationships—a partnership wrapped in a competition wrapped in a cold stare of mutual suspicion.

The relationship between China and Europe stretches back centuries, long before anyone dreamed of something called the European Union. Portuguese traders reached the Ming dynasty in the sixteenth century. French Jesuits served in the imperial court. German engineers helped build railways across the Chinese interior. But the modern relationship—the one that now shapes global trade, technology, and geopolitics—began in 1975, when the European Community, the predecessor to today's European Union, established formal diplomatic ties with the People's Republic of China.

Today, these two powers are each other's largest trading partners. The European Union sells more goods to China than to any other country, and China ships more products to Europe than anywhere else on Earth. In 2023, China accounted for nine percent of everything the European Union exported and a remarkable twenty percent of everything it imported. The sheer scale of this commercial relationship creates a gravitational pull that neither side can escape, no matter how much the politics might sour.

The Architecture of an Uneasy Partnership

The legal foundation of European Union-China relations rests on a document from 1985: the EU-China Trade and Cooperation Agreement. That makes the treaty older than the Berlin Wall's fall, older than the internet as we know it, older than China's transformation into an industrial superpower. Diplomats have been trying to replace it with something more ambitious since 2007, but those negotiations have stalled repeatedly, leaving the relationship built on a framework designed for a world that no longer exists.

Instead of one grand treaty, the two sides have constructed an elaborate scaffolding of twenty-four separate dialogues and agreements covering everything from environmental protection to education. There are annual summits where leaders discuss politics and economics. There are strategic agendas and joint communications and cooperation programs. The bureaucratic machinery is extensive, but the underlying question remains unresolved: What kind of relationship is this, really?

The European Union has tried to answer that question in official documents. In 2013, both sides adopted the EU-China 2020 Strategic Agenda for Cooperation, which called for working together on peace, prosperity, sustainable development, and what diplomats call "people-to-people exchanges." The language was optimistic, full of phrases about mutual respect and shared goals. But within a few years, the tone had shifted. By 2016, Brussels was drafting strategies that acknowledged growing competition alongside cooperation.

Science Before Strategy

Before the relationship became so politically fraught, it was scientists who built the bridges. China and the European Union launched their first science and technology cooperation program in 1983, two years before the formal trade agreement. Researchers found common ground more easily than politicians.

In 1998, the two sides signed an Agreement on Scientific and Technological Cooperation, renewed in 2004, that linked research organizations, universities, and individual scientists across continents. The European Union's Horizon 2020 program—its massive research funding initiative—included explicit collaboration with Chinese partners in areas like food and agriculture, sustainable urbanization, energy, and aeronautics. Scientists worked together on everything from information technology to polar research.

This scientific cooperation represented the optimistic view of globalization: that shared problems would create shared solutions, that collaboration would build trust, that mutual benefit would smooth political friction. It worked, to a degree. But science, it turned out, could not inoculate the relationship against the forces pulling it apart.

The Investment Agreement That Wasn't

Perhaps nothing illustrates the trajectory of European Union-China relations better than the Comprehensive Agreement on Investment, known in bureaucratic shorthand as the CAI.

Negotiations began in 2014, during an era when closer economic integration still seemed like the obvious path forward. Year after year, negotiators met and discussed and drafted and revised. In September 2019, Phil Hogan, the European Union's trade commissioner in Ursula von der Leyen's new commission, promised during his confirmation hearings that he would complete the deal by the end of 2020.

He nearly did. In December 2020, just before the year ended, the European Union and China announced they had reached an agreement in principle. Officials called it the most ambitious deal China had ever concluded, one that would significantly open Chinese markets to European companies. After seven years of negotiation, success seemed at hand.

Then everything collapsed.

The problem wasn't the economics—it was politics. In early 2021, the European Union imposed sanctions on Chinese officials over human rights abuses against the Uyghur minority in Xinjiang. China responded with its own sanctions targeting members of the European Parliament, officials from the European Council's Political and Security Committee, and even European think tanks.

Sanctioning the very parliamentarians who would need to ratify the investment agreement was, to put it mildly, not a sophisticated diplomatic move. By March 2021, serious doubts had emerged about whether the deal could pass. By May, the European Parliament had formally frozen ratification. The agreement, nearly seven years in the making, was dead in all but name.

America's Shadow

The investment agreement's collapse revealed another tension simmering beneath the European Union-China relationship: the role of the United States.

When the European Union announced the deal in December 2020, American politicians and commentators erupted in criticism. How could the Europeans negotiate with China without consulting Washington? The objections came from both parties, from the outgoing Trump administration and the incoming Biden team alike.

European officials found the criticism hard to take seriously. Just one year earlier, the United States had signed its own trade agreement with China—the so-called Phase One deal—without consulting the European Union at all. The hypocrisy seemed rather obvious.

But the episode exposed a deeper anxiety. The Biden administration spoke of America being "at the head of the table again," language that some European analysts interpreted as a warning against European strategic autonomy. The message seemed to be that the European Union should coordinate its China policy with Washington, which in practice meant following Washington's lead.

This tension is not new. It dates back to the end of the Cold War, when China began to see the European Union as too weak, too divided, and too dependent on the United States to act as an independent force in global affairs. Chinese leaders watched Europe champion the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's expansion eastward and its intervention in Kosovo, both of which Beijing opposed as extensions of American power. When the European Union refused to lift its arms embargo on China despite years of Chinese lobbying, officials in Beijing concluded that European foreign policy was ultimately subordinate to American preferences.

The Arms Embargo

That arms embargo deserves its own explanation, because it remains one of the most persistent irritants in the relationship.

In June 1989, the Chinese government sent troops to clear protesters from Tiananmen Square in Beijing. The world watched as tanks rolled toward demonstrators who had occupied the square for weeks, demanding political reform. The exact death toll remains unknown and disputed, but the crackdown shocked Western governments.

The European Community responded by imposing an embargo on arms sales to China. More than three decades later, that embargo remains in place—one of the longest-running sanctions in European foreign policy.

China has pushed repeatedly for its removal. In the early 2000s, some European leaders, particularly in France, seemed sympathetic. They argued that the embargo was outdated, that China had changed, that lifting it would improve relations and open commercial opportunities. But the United States lobbied intensively against any change, and the embargo stayed.

For China, the embargo represents a fundamental disrespect—a punishment for events now a generation old, maintained not because of European conviction but because of American pressure. For the European Union, it has become awkward: a sanction that everyone knows will never be lifted but that no one wants to formally make permanent.

Trade: The Gravitational Force

Despite all the political friction, trade between the European Union and China has grown relentlessly for decades.

Consider the trajectory. In 1985, bilateral trade totaled fourteen billion dollars. By 1994, it had tripled to nearly forty-six billion. In 1998, even as the Asian financial crisis devastated economies across the region, European Union-China trade increased by fifteen percent. The 2008 global financial crisis barely registered as a pause. Between 2009 and 2010 alone, European exports to China jumped by thirty-eight percent.

In 2020, China overtook the United States to become the European Union's largest trading partner in goods. That single statistic captures a tectonic shift in global economic gravity.

The trade is dominated by industrial and manufactured products. China exports computers, broadcasting equipment, telephones, office machine parts, and integrated circuits—the electronic guts of modern life. Europe exports machinery, vehicles, aircraft, luxury goods, and agricultural products. In 2016, bilateral trade in goods reached five hundred fifteen billion euros.

But the relationship is deeply imbalanced. The European Union runs a massive trade deficit with China—three hundred six billion euros in 2024. European officials attribute this gap to what they consider unfair Chinese practices: state subsidies to domestic industries, restrictions on foreign companies operating in China, and what Brussels calls industrial overcapacity—Chinese factories producing far more than domestic demand requires, with the surplus dumped on global markets at prices competitors cannot match.

Dumping and Duties

The word "dumping" has a specific meaning in international trade. It refers to selling products in foreign markets at prices below their normal value—typically below production cost or below what they sell for in the home market. The practice can devastate domestic industries that cannot compete with artificially cheap imports.

The European Union has imposed numerous anti-dumping measures against Chinese products over the years. Steel has been a particular focus. When global steel prices collapsed in the 2010s, European steelmakers blamed Chinese overcapacity—massive state-backed investment in steel production that flooded global markets. Brussels responded with tariffs designed to offset what it considered unfair subsidies.

The disputes have only multiplied. In 2023, the European Union opened an investigation into Chinese biodiesel dumping. In May 2024, the European Commission launched a probe into Chinese tinplate steel. In April 2025, Brussels imposed anti-dumping duties on Chinese construction machinery.

China has not absorbed these measures passively. In September 2025, Beijing placed duties on European pork imports—a targeted response that hit agricultural exporters in countries like Spain and Denmark particularly hard. The tit-for-tat pattern has become familiar: European tariffs on Chinese industrial goods, Chinese tariffs on European agricultural products, each side claiming to defend its markets from unfair practices.

Electric Vehicles and Rare Earths

The most visible trade dispute of recent years involves electric vehicles.

In June 2024, the European Union announced tariffs on Chinese electric car imports, arguing that massive state subsidies gave Chinese manufacturers an unfair advantage. The decision was contentious even within Europe. German automakers, who depend heavily on the Chinese market, worried about retaliation. Other European countries, with less to lose in China, supported protecting domestic industry from competition they considered artificially cheap.

China's response was characteristically asymmetric. Rather than just imposing counter-tariffs, Beijing privately urged Chinese automakers to stop making large investments in European countries that had supported the electric vehicle tariffs. The message was clear: access to Chinese capital and technology would depend on political behavior.

Meanwhile, China tightened export controls on rare earth elements—the obscure metals essential to everything from smartphones to wind turbines to military equipment. China dominates global rare earth production, controlling roughly sixty percent of mining and an even higher share of processing. When Beijing restricted exports, European manufacturers felt the squeeze immediately.

For European officials, the rare earth controls confirmed fears about supply chain vulnerability. For Chinese analysts, they represented entirely reasonable management of strategic resources—the same kind of export controls that Western countries impose on sensitive technologies. The gap in perception reflects a deeper disagreement about what counts as fair play in global trade.

Strategic Mistrust

By mid-2025, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen described the relationship as having reached an "inflection point." The word choices from European officials had grown notably sharper.

Engin Eroglu, the chair of the European Parliament's China delegation, used the phrase "strategic mistrust" to describe the atmosphere between Brussels and Beijing. He called the mood "tense, if not frosty." Trust that had been fragile to begin with had deteriorated further.

Several factors drove the souring. The trade deficit kept widening. Market access for European companies in China remained restricted. China's support for Russia during the invasion of Ukraine infuriated European governments that had expected Beijing to at least remain neutral. When the European Union invited Chinese officials to Brussels for talks, Beijing rejected the invitation—a diplomatic snub that reinforced the sense that China did not take the relationship seriously.

Medical devices became an unexpected flashpoint. In April 2024, the European Commission opened an investigation into whether China was blocking European medical equipment from its market. By June 2025, Brussels had prohibited procurement of certain Chinese-made medical devices, concluding that European manufacturers faced barriers in China that Chinese companies did not face in Europe. The reciprocity principle—you can sell here only if we can sell there—was becoming European policy.

The Debt Crisis Interlude

Not all moments in the relationship have been hostile. During the European debt crisis of the early 2010s, China played an unexpected role: financial rescuer.

When Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, and Spain teetered on the edge of default, requiring bailouts from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund, China stepped in to buy billions of euros worth of their government bonds. The purchases helped stabilize markets and signaled Chinese confidence in the eurozone's survival.

Some analysts argued that China was buying political influence, using its financial power to gain leverage in European capitals. Chinese officials insisted they were simply building trade relationships and supporting European economic stability to keep commerce flowing smoothly. The truth probably contained elements of both.

The episode revealed something important about Chinese strategy: Beijing thinks in long time horizons. While Western governments lurched from crisis to crisis, Chinese planners were positioning for decades ahead, building relationships and dependencies that might prove useful under circumstances no one could yet predict.

Pandemic Politics

The COVID-19 pandemic created another moment of unexpected connection—and immediate suspicion.

As the virus spread across Europe in early 2020, China sent medical supplies and aid to affected countries. Masks, ventilators, and protective equipment flowed from Chinese factories to Italian hospitals and Spanish clinics. Chinese officials emphasized their generosity, contrasting it with what they portrayed as American indifference.

Josep Borrell, the European Union's foreign policy chief, issued a blunt warning. He acknowledged the aid but cautioned that there was "a geo-political component including a struggle for influence through spinning and the 'politics of generosity.'" China, he said, was "aggressively pushing the message that, unlike the US, it is a responsible and reliable partner."

European Council President Charles Michel offered an equally pointed response during the 2020 European Union-China summit: "Europe is a player, not a playing field." The message to Beijing was clear—the European Union would not be a passive object of great power competition between China and the United States.

Climate: The One Bright Spot

If there is one area where European Union-China cooperation has consistently functioned, it is climate change.

The European Union has been China's most reliable partner on clean energy and emissions reduction. Both sides share an interest in avoiding the worst outcomes of global warming. Both have made ambitious commitments to carbon neutrality—the European Union by 2050, China by 2060. Both have invested heavily in renewable energy, electric transportation, and green technology.

This cooperation matters because the physics of climate change does not respect political boundaries. European emissions reductions mean nothing if Chinese emissions continue rising, and vice versa. Neither side can solve the problem alone. The necessity of collaboration has created a rare space where shared interests outweigh competing ones.

But even climate cooperation exists in the shadow of other tensions. European officials worry that Chinese dominance in solar panels, batteries, and electric vehicles—all essential to the energy transition—creates dangerous dependencies. The same supply chain vulnerabilities that appear in rare earths appear in green technology. Cooperation and competition, once again, intertwined.

History's Long Arc

It is worth remembering how much has changed.

In the 1990s, after the Cold War ended, China saw Europe as a secondary concern. The United States, Japan, and other Asian powers mattered more. Europe was interesting mainly as a market and a potential source of technology. Chinese leaders made high-level visits to European capitals, usually accompanied by major purchases—aircraft from Airbus, trains from Alstom, machinery from German manufacturers. The relationship was primarily commercial.

European leaders, meanwhile, saw China through the lens of engagement. Trade would bring reform. Economic integration would moderate political behavior. Closer ties would pull China into the international order as a responsible stakeholder. France pushed for establishing "strategic partnerships" with Beijing, hoping to build a multipolar world that would balance American power.

That vision of benign convergence has not materialized. China has grown vastly richer and more powerful without becoming more liberal. The European Union has become more skeptical without becoming more unified. The strategic partnership language remains in official documents, but the substance has drained away.

What Now?

The European Union faces a genuine dilemma. It cannot afford to break with China—the economic interdependence is too deep. But it cannot afford to ignore the political challenges China poses—the values gap is too wide.

Brussels has settled on a policy of "de-risking" rather than "decoupling." The idea is to reduce dependence on China in critical sectors—semiconductors, rare earths, pharmaceuticals, energy—while maintaining the broader trading relationship. The European Commission has announced plans to diversify supply chains, build domestic production capacity, and strengthen trade defense instruments.

Whether this approach will work remains uncertain. De-risking is easier to announce than to accomplish. European companies have spent decades building supply chains optimized for Chinese manufacturing. Unwinding those relationships is expensive and disruptive. Some industries may prove impossible to relocate at acceptable cost.

China, meanwhile, has its own strategy: making European dependence even deeper. Chinese investment in European ports, technology companies, and infrastructure creates ties that are difficult to sever. Chinese dominance in critical minerals and green technology makes diversification costly. The leverage runs both ways, but the balance may be shifting.

For European policymakers, the essential question is whether the European Union can act as an independent force in a world increasingly defined by American-Chinese competition. The answer remains uncertain. Europe has the economic weight to matter—its combined economy rivals America's and exceeds China's. But translating economic weight into strategic coherence has always been the European Union's struggle.

The relationship between Europe and China will continue to matter enormously. Together, they represent a third of global economic output and a quarter of the world's population. How they navigate their differences—over trade, technology, human rights, and geopolitical alignment—will shape the century ahead.

For now, the four-part description from 2019 remains the best summary available: cooperation partner, negotiating partner, economic competitor, systemic rival. All at once. All the time. The difficulty is not in naming the categories but in knowing which one applies at any given moment—and whether the balance will tip toward partnership or rivalry as the years unfold.