“In the year 2020, China was the main partner for the EU. This result was due to an increase of imports (5.6 per cent) and exports (2.2 per cent). At the same time, trade with the United States recorded a significant drop in both imports (-13.2 per cent) and exports (-8.2 per cent),” Eurostat said in a statement on Monday.

The US, which is now the EU’s second biggest trading partner, has a trade volume of €555 billion with the EU. This is a 10 per cent drop from the €617 billion trade volume in 2019.

China remains the EU’s biggest source of imports, second to the US which is the EU’s biggest export market.

What is the China-EU CAI and how is it different from a trade deal?

While the latest EU data did not specify which goods were part of the increased trade with China, the EU’s main imports from the country are industrial and consumer products, machinery and equipment, and footwear and clothing, according to the European Commission’s official website. The main EU exports to China include machinery and equipment, motor vehicles, aircraft and chemicals.

Nick Marro, global trade lead at the Economist Intelligence Unit, said the fact that China was able to come back in the second quarter of last year as other markets went into lockdown has allowed exports to capitalise on surging global demand for electronics, entertainment and health care goods.

“For European manufacturers, the revival in China’s automobile market and the broader consumer shift towards online consumption – specifically for luxury goods – preserved demand for some European products when overseas markets collapsed elsewhere,” he said. “In value terms, US-EU trade flows are still well below historic levels, reflecting production and consumption disruptions in both markets.”

Marro said the overall structure of the EU’s trade relations with the US and China had not fundamentally changed.

“[The] expansion in total EU-China trade volumes more reflects strong growth in EU imports from China in 2020, rather than European exports benefiting strongly from China’s economic recovery. As a result, the overall structure of the EU’s trade relations are still more or less unchanged, and the importance of the US as a trade partner hasn’t meaningfully diminished. We’ll likely see a stronger revival in transatlantic trade flows as the pandemic comes under control in both markets, including as both sides jump-start their post-crisis recoveries,” Marro said.

“European companies are increasingly, and more convincingly, pointing to the importance of the Chinese market as an engine of European economic growth. That reflects much of the appetite in pushing through the CAI. All of these factors will complicate Joe Biden’s strategy to work with Europe in coordinating a transatlantic strategy regarding China, especially in areas including economic and trade relations,” he said.

EU foreign policy boss reminds China of the bloc’s ‘strong bond’ with US

“We’d still expect general US-EU alignment in areas like security and human rights.”

Deborah Elms, founder and executive director of the Singapore-based Asian Trade Centre, said the expanded trade ties between the EU and China showed why the EU was keen to agree the CAI.

“The volume of two-way transactions increasingly requires some sort of framework and structure to help govern the investment relationship,” Elms said.

“What will now become equally important to all [China, the EU and the US], and to everyone else, is trying to craft global trade rules that work for all three parties,” Elms said.

Christian Bluth, a senior expert in international economics at German think tank Bertelsmann Stiftung, said there were growing worries in the EU about expanded trade relations, although not out of concern for the greater trade deficit that came with China being the EU’s biggest trade partner.

“European policymakers don’t look at the bilateral trade deficit much, what matters is that the EU’s aggregate balance is sustainable – this is not a matter of concern. That does, however, not mean that there is no political risk to the deepening of EU-China trade relations. There is increased worry on the European side that the EU is becoming too dependent on China and Chinese producers,” Bluth said.

“Especially, if China uses its economic power to pursue geostrategic goals, this can cause a political backlash in the EU.”