EU-CHINA RELATIONS: A chess game with 28 players

By Jonathan Eyal

EUROPEAN governments may disagree about how to tackle the current financial crisis, but they all agree on one issue: China is crucial to global economic recovery.

Yet, as a recent report from the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) - a leading think-tank - points out, the Chinese have a very different perception about Europe's importance. They regard the European Union (EU) as a political dwarf - a rich but dysfunctional player which very often can simply be ignored.

China 'treats its relationship with the EU as a game of chess, with 27 opponents crowding the other side of the table and squabbling about which piece to move', the ECFR report claims. And unless the Europeans act in unison, matters are only likely to get worse.

Europe has long felt sidelined by China. Trade disputes between America and China preoccupy all international financial negotiations. Europe, which is actually China's biggest export market, hardly gets a hearing. And the whopping $332 billion surplus in China's trade with Europe last year alone elicits no expressions of concern from Beijing.

More importantly, the Europeans feel politically humiliated. If the Chinese cancelled a summit at the level of heads of state with the US, this would have been headline news. But when China cancelled a scheduled summit with the EU last December because it did not like Europe's policies over Tibet, nobody noticed.

One reason why China does not take the EU seriously is that, despite its name, Europe is hardly a proper 'union'. It is a confederation of nation-states, pursuing different agendas. It did not take the Chinese long to conclude that, while there was no point in offending the stream of EU bureaucrats who visit Beijing, the real business is still conducted in Berlin, Paris and London.
True, the Chinese are paying a price for this policy. China's relations with the European Parliament are poor: the EU legislature frequently passes resolutions criticising Beijing's human rights record.

But, on the whole, China still gets its way by 'running rings around the EU', as the ECFR report puts it.

Beijing's chief tactic is to forge a close relationship with one important European country at any given time. For years, Britain was Beijing's bogeyman. Now, it is the turn of France to be excluded, while Britain is lavished diplomatic attention.

In theory, there is an answer to this tactic: the Europeans can stick together. As the authors of the ECFR report argue, the EU could refuse to make trade concessions unless Beijing opens up its own markets. Also, it could refuse to lift the current arms embargo on China until Beijing promises to cooperate over European security concerns in Iran or Africa.

But this confrontational approach, although beguilingly simple, is also guaranteed to fail. Europe is the victim of wider historic trends that can neither be ignored nor wished away.

Paradoxically, the Chinese used to be the EU's most fervent supporters. During the long decades of the Cold War, China hoped that the EU could provide a counter-balance to the US and the then Soviet Union, a third force in international relations. That was the moment when Europe could have forged a special relationship with Beijing. Unfortunately, that was also the moment when Europe preferred to examine its own navel.

That historic opportunity is unlikely to return. The Chinese have now reached a stage in their development when they no longer need the EU to counter-balance America: Beijing can do this on its own. And the rise of other powers has further diminished Europe's importance. So the Europeans are proposing to get serious about China just when Beijing no longer needs them.
And despite all their pretences, the Europeans still do not understand what makes China tick. Although all EU member-states have embassies in Beijing, only a handful have any serious presence throughout Asia. Very few European foreign ministries employ Chinese speakers or experts. And only a tiny minority have either the capacity or interest to think in global terms.
The result is that Europeans often make decisions without even sparing a thought as to how they could affect China.

At the last G-20 summit in London, for example, the Europeans wanted to isolate offshore financial centres - the so-called 'tax havens' - oblivious to the fact that China, with its interests in Hong Kong and Macau, was never likely to accept this. It took US President Barack Obama to broker a deal, leaving the Europeans to fume on the sidelines.

The same applies to Europe's grandstanding on human rights. Not one EU official believes that the 'dialogue' with Beijing on such matters can produce any results. But talks continue, because nobody agrees what should replace them.

As the report from the ECFR correctly points out, 'Europe's approach to China is stuck in the past'.

Yet the future still does not lie in confronting Beijing. Rather, it has to start with the Europeans understanding that they never had the slightest hope of 'changing' China, and they no longer have the luxury to choose how or when to engage with Beijing.

This may not be a pleasant conclusion for the 'old continent'. But it remains a necessary one.

ST May 7, 2009