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Opinion | EU and China must abandon petty disputes to provide global leadership
The coming EU-China summit must show that both sides are willing to genuinely cooperate on global challenges or it shouldn’t be held at all
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I’ve tracked relations between China and the European Union for nearly three decades, reporting and commenting on the highs and lows of a relationship that, despite its volatility, has lasted 50 years. Most of the time, I could make sense of it and understand what made European and Chinese policymakers tick.
It was clear that China sought recognition as a major strategic partner of the EU and hoped Europe could act as a counterbalance to the United States. The EU was determined to secure more and better access to Chinese markets, urging faster trade liberalisation and economic reform.
Fast forward to mid-2025, and for the first time, I cannot make head or tail of the state of EU–China ties.
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Brussels and Beijing have become trapped in a confusing, contradictory and often chaotic relationship. Their frequent meetings have been reduced to rituals of mixed messages while tit-for-tat feuds offer endless fodder for think tanks, lawyers, academics and self-anointed geopolitical gurus. Despite the diplomatic gloss of “strategic partnership,” the relationship has always been transactional.
EU officials may bristle at the comparison but as the late Princess Diana famously said about her troubled marriage: “There were always three of us”. In this case, the third partner is the US.
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The transatlantic alliance has long been a cornerstone of European foreign policy. But European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has taken that alignment to new extremes, especially under former US president Joe Biden, clinging ever tighter to America’s strategic coattails.
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