Advertisement
Diplomacy
OpinionComment
Josep Borrell Fontelles
Josep Borrell Fontelles

Opinion | Obstacles to better China-EU relations can be cleared

  • The EU wants China to become more involved in global issues such as climate change, health and debt relief, which is why decoupling is impossible
  • The two must continue to engage to resolve their differences over trade imbalances and security issues like Ukraine and Taiwan

Reading Time:3 minutes
Why you can trust SCMP
51
European Commission Executive Vice-President Valdis Dombrovskis and Chinese Vice-Premier He Lifeng arrive for a press conference following the 10th EU-China High-Level Economic and Trade Dialogue in Beijing on September 25. Photo: EPA-EFE
Josep Borrell Fontelles

I have come to China to have frank exchanges about obstacles that exist in our EU-China relations, and to talk about how to manage this relationship more effectively. Indeed, we need to work with China, just as China needs to work with us, as the world has become ever more interdependent.

We are not afraid of a multipolar world. A multipolar world reflects the fact that wealth has spread to an increasing number of nations, and we welcome this. Yet for it to function peacefully, this multipolarity requires regulation. However, while multipolarity has increased, there has been a decline in multilateralism.

We acknowledge the need for reform of many international institutions, including the UN Security Council. We should work on that together. However, without shared rules, power politics – the rule of the strong over the weak – will prevail. This would be unacceptable.
We do not seek to curb China’s rise globally. On the contrary, we want China to become more involved in global issues such as climate change, health, and debt relief in developing countries. We wish to cooperate with China on all major global challenges, which is why any form of decoupling is not only undesirable but also impossible.
This is clearly the case with climate. The position China will adopt at COP28 UN climate conference – especially if it features more ambitious climate-related targets – will send an important message to the rest of the world, given the country’s global influence and its position as the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitter.

On the economic front, our relationship is currently far from satisfactory. We are a major export market for China, but this relationship has for many years been an imbalanced one, and that imbalance continues to worsen.

Advertisement