Europe and China-Europe Relations in the Historic Centenary Zeitenwende
In the report of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, “Our world, our times, and history are changing in ways like never before…All of this is posing unprecedented challenges for human society. The world is standing at the crossroad of history, and everyone must work together to map out its futureEurope likewise faces the zeitenwende moment, Europes perceptions of the world have changed with the twin shock of the COVID-19 pandemic and the Ukraine crisis. The evolving new world order and the necessary adjustments of its selfperceptions, policy goals, and implementation paths have accelerated. Currently, Europe is experiencing the transition from the post-Lisbon Treaty era to the post-Ukraine crisis period. In the near future, Sino-Europe relations will act as an important factor in the transformation of Europe and become a major factor in shaping the future regional and world order. Although their perceptions and behaviors of the uZeitenwende?> are different, China and Europe must work together and play a positive and constructive role in building a new type of international relations and working out a new framework of major power relations that is stable and balanced.
Transformation of Europe amid the Centenary Zeitenwende: From Post-Lisbon Treaty Era to the Post-Ukraine Crisis Period
”Transformation of Europe” has been a new framework for scholars to study the major European changes. The term has specific meanings for different disciplines and perspectives. For instance, from the historical perspective, the transition from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance is undoubtedly a ”transformation of Europe.” In contrast, from the political and economic perspective, the end of the Cold War also transforms Europe, especially Central and Eastern Europe. The “transformation of Europe” framework proposed by Joseph Weiler in 1991 is based on the perspective of integrated transformation. It adopts political and legal analytical tools to observe and summarize European Comm unity s economic and political transformation? Weiler et al.s research, done around 30 years ago, has drawn some important conclusions and has been reviewed and updated. However, when reviewed now, it still seems limited in terms of its understanding of the world and the times, and to some degree, it seems like a European version of “the end of history?’
In terms of background, motivation, and direction, the current transformation of Europe has exceeded not only Weilers paradigm of integration but also recent hot spots like Europes economic, energy, digital, and geopolitical transformation. To some extent, “qualitative” changes have occurred in Europes understanding of the world and its role, the development direction, the political and economic structure, and the policy logic and behavior. The changes in the world, the timing, and history are interrelated. Therefore, the study on Europes current transformation is closely related to studies on previous transformations and requires a broader understanding of the world today;
Changes in Europe’s perception of the world: “dewesternization” and the multipolar world
Europe is facing rising internal and external conflicts and realizing its declining capabilities to handle the challenges; Europes perception of the world has slowly changed in the past decade. Based on the focus of the Munich Security Reports since 2015, it can be seen that the two main factors affecting Europes worldview are the intensification of insecurity and confusion about future changes, from “‘collapsing order” to ”never-ending crises： from “post-truth, post-West, post-order” to “Fragmentation； helplessness to <<de-Westernization?> The European policy circle has repeatedly questioned the direction of the changing world order. Its worry about the “collapse of the liberal-democratic order ” has increased year by year, which it blames on “reckless spoilers” and ‘”reluctant guardians.However, it still tries to balance ‘”competition and cooperation.% The Ukraine crisis that broke out in early 2022 has shattered Europes expectation of “to the brink—and back” and the illusion that the West could “turn the tide.”’ Faced with rising risks of major power rivalry and the prospect that Europe becoming the main
battlefield, the European policy circle reluctantly admitted that the “multipolar pattern with Sino-US competition at the core” is the most likely scenario. Therefore, the ideal choice for Europe is to become one of the major powers with maintaining a “liberal-democratic order’ as its basic political position.
Changes of Europe’s idea on the world order: rules-based or power-based
For Europe, the most direct and significant challenge to the uliberal-democratic order” is that the ‘”universal rules” based on ”universal values” have been hit hard. It includes two parts, the political challenge brought by anon-liberal democracies” and populists from within and the institutional challenge to the “rules-based world order” by “‘authoritarian states.” Since the end of the Cold as a core member of the Western group, Europe has enjoyed the dividends of regional peace and economic globalization. Europe has formed its soft power by widely exporting rules through EU expansion and various “partnerships” based on the perceived attractiveness of its political, legal system and way of life. Soft power became essential to its overall strength and international influence. However, as the great power game turns into all-around competition in which hard power becomes more important, Europe has experienced different degrees and forms of “involution” in domestic politics, regional integration, and foreign relations. These include the declining institutional legitimacy and attractiveness, the encounter of “push-backs” when exporting rules, the frustration when facing the US, Russia, and China, the possibility of becoming a “superpower tool,” and the likelihood of ‘multi-speed Europe” becoming ‘multi-directional Europe.” Based on these cruel realities, Europe believes that, at least in multi-polarization,
the strength-based redistribution of power and wealth would become the dominant rule. Europe should no longer be “naive” about the rules-based order and has to accept the realist logic of power to transform itself and become a stable member of the first-tier great powers. Only in this way can Europe continue to have discourse power, influence, and rule-making power. This realist view has become Europes main idea on the world order and likely stay into the future. To improve its adaptive capacities and compensate for the concept and policy defects of being too dependent on rules, Europe has turned to ‘strategic autonomy” to improve hard power, reorganize internal and external resources, and reshape the power composition. However, capacity building requires long-term and focused political will, policy support, and investment of resources. Europe hopes to use multilateralism to regulate the multipolar world, balance powerbased and rules-based order, and “forcibly^ push the “hardened” rules to compensate for the short-term lack of strength and buy time for long-term capacity building.
Changes in Europe’s idea of development: from economic expansion to political/security protection
The European debt crisis is the starting point of a series of internal and external challenges to Europe, and the crisis has stimulated changes in Europes perceptions, policies, and behaviors. The change in the development idea is the most profound and lasting one. Before emphasizing ‘”European sovereignty” and ‘strategic autonomy/，Europes development idea was geo-economic expansion under liberal economic order expansion, EUs eastward enlargement and its all-around free trade zone strategy were for the economic goals of expanding the single market and exporting economic and trade rules. It should be noted that the EUs role as a “geo-economic actor” manifests its single market expansion at the level of international relations. By upgrading and promoting its economic rules and standards during the globalization wave, the EU has downplayed its geographical position as a regional power and strengthened the universality of its rules. The change has become increasingly stiffened as globalization is “in retreat,” especially when Europes economic competitiveness is declining due to successive crises. At the same time, economies like China succeeded in adapting to globalization based on their national conditions. In this context, the EU has successively proposed and generalized the idea of “‘European sovereignty,^ highlighted economic security and extended ‘strategic autonomy” to the economic field by proposing green and digital transformation, and declared “the awakening of geopolitical Europe.” The measures aim to change the world economic situation in which Europe is losing the rule-making power, provide political legitimacy for Europes forming of technical, industrial, energy, and fiscal alliances, and further build the single market. Europes idea on development has shifted from geo-economic expansion based on the rules of liberal globalization to politics/security protection+geoeconomic competition in the multipolar world dominated by geopolitics.
^Post-Ukraine crisis period”： a new stage of Europe’s transformation
The basic assumption of the earlier analysis about the ”transformation of Europe” is that from Weiler et al. s view, the period between Maastricht Treaty and Lisbon Treaty could be considered an important period of Europes transformation. During this period, Europes economic integration began to move towards political integration, with Lisbon Treaty as a remarkable achievement after the failure of the “European Constitution.” However, Europe encountered a series of crises before fully realizing political integration. The long-term tasks like institution-building and social consensus promotion have to give way to continuous crisis management strategies until the outbreak of the Ukraine crisis, which leads the transformation from the “post-Lisbon Treaty era” started in 2009 to the apost-Ukraine crisis period.”
It is hard to explain and analyze Europes transformation in the “postUkraine crisis period” simply with the integration frameworks. Since the signing of the Lisbon Treaty, several events have been beyond the scope of previous experiences and analytical frameworks, such as Brexit and Europes geopolitical turn. Under tremendous internal and external changes, Europes transformation has shifted from an independent pattern to a crisis-driven stimulus-response pattern, quite different from previous transformation stages. The other major difference is that Europes policy responses get more sensitive as Europe becomes more affected by major power rivalry and changes in the world order,
China-Europe Relations Have Become an Important Factor in the Transformation of Europe
The Ukraine crisis is a landmark event of Europe entering a new stage of transformation. Although the crisis is still ongoing and the outcome remains uncertain, few would doubt that Europe will experience reconstruction of security, energy, and economic structures, and its internal power structure. European order reconstruction might be the theme for the apost-Ukraine crisis period.” Major power relations and world order changes would increasingly influence and shape Europes transformation. The trends of Europe-Russia relations (coexist despite opposition) and Europe-US relations (compete with coordination) are relatively clean But as the EU regards China as a partner, an economic competitor, and a systemic rival, China-Europe relations are more complicated, not to mention the influence of other major power relations. The direction and path of Europes transformation depend on how it handles three pairs of basic contradictions in which China-Europe relations play an important or even assume a pivotal role.
The contradiction between the multipolarization of the world and the bissection of values
The worlds multi-polarisation is the dominant view of the European policy circle on world order, and the view provides the basis of its policy goals like pursuing “‘strategic autonomy” maintaining European characteristics, and expanding economic interests. However, at the same time, to maintain European political characteristics and strengthen its rule-exporting capacities, Europe has been keen to emphasize values in international relations. It has gradually formed the binary values of democracy-autocracy confrontation, under the influence of the US. Based on “‘principled pragmatism： Europes understanding of the multi-polarization of the world serves its pragmatic goals, with binary values corresponding to the political principles it sticks to. Though this mixed logic provides flexibility for Europes policy formulation and implementation, it still faces inherent contradictions in practice.
To cope with the changing situation, Europe needs to clarify its political identity, achieve political mobilization by emphasizing values and solve the internal problem of “‘illiberal democracy” through strict political rules. In the meantime, it has to use “common values” to influence the political changes in the US and win over political allies in moderately developed countries to realize the expansion of its interests. However, when handling relations with non-Western countries, the contradiction between Europes insistence on its values and the complexity of the multipolar world becomes prominent. The role of value-oriented diplomacy has declined, sometimes causing side effects and counteractions, as it encounters various forms of opposition. It is also the main reason for the rising political differences between China and Europe in recent years, as Europe sticks to (or even tries to expand) its values, and China proposes a vision of diversification of development paths. Europe uses a single value system to eliminate internal political differences and navigate the multipolar world with diverse interests. At the same time, China understands and strengthens the rationality of its rising power through the lens of the diversity of civilizations and development paths and uses it to respond to the reality and the trend of world multi-polarization. These differences are related to the changes in the balance of power between the two sides, which are hard to reconcile until a new balance of power is reached.
The contradiction between economic symbiosis and political antagonism
Regarding the first contradiction, there are divisions in understanding, conflicts of interests, and policy distortions when Europe plays geo-economic and geopolitical roles together. In the existing geo-economic structure, Europe has to solve this problem if it pursues a value-oriented geopolitical position and increases its hard power. Otherwise, it would fail to use its economic resources to support the geopolitical aspect or even lose its geo-economic benefits as the existing economic structure is damaged.
“Europe is becoming the loser of economic globalization.The discourse has been the main populist rhetoric in Europe in recent years and the official rhetoric when Europe defends its geopolitical position. Europe uses geopolitical approaches to reshape the economic structure and distribution pattern towards one conducive to its development. The approach is its principal policy rationale and the logic it holds to solve the contradiction between political transformation and existing economic interests. However, in reality, Europe has utilized economic globalization opportunities to realize the optimal allocation of resources under existing conditions. The “energy dependence” on Russia and the ‘market dependence” on China has supported Europes formation of the current geo-economic paradigm and externally oriented profit paradigm, helped Europe promote its economic concepts and market models, and formed Europes symbiotic relationship with emerging economies. If Europe allows geopolitical logic to drive political confrontation and dominate economic policy, the existing geo-economic order in Europe will undergo some structural changes. Although it proposes a diversification strategy to relieve the economic stress caused by political transformation, such as tapping the internal economic potential, shifting to North America, the Middle East, and North Africa for energy supply, and reestablishing industrial supply chain in Southeast Asia, the uncertainty and the cost are still unbearable. The huge differences and heated debates in Europes political and economic circles clearly show the strong division between economic symbiosis and political antagonism during the transition period. Compared with cutting energy dependency on Russia due to the Ukraine crisis, the cost would be much higher in the case of China, as Europes economic and trade relations with China are much closer» Therefore, the direction of China-Europe economic and trade relations would be a touchstone for Europes new idea development based on geopolitical transformation and decide whether the new ideas could be implemented and ultimately serve Europes policy goals.
The contradiction between cooperation and competition as policy paths
Based on changes in the world paradigm and order perception, Europe faces a more complex external environment featuring geopolitical rivalry. It must balance cooperation and competition in its policies to handle the abovementioned contradictions simultaneously; The ideal condition is to achieve a dynamic balance in foreign relations, especially relations with major powers in different periods and areas. This effort could be seen in its policy practices with the US (coordination and competition), Russia (opposing but leaving some room), and China (cooperation, competition, and containment).
However, it is becoming extremely difficult for Europe to achieve a dynamic balance in the current situation, where all countries prioritize their internal affairs when making foreign policies. The Ukraine crisiss evolution from the Crimea conflict to the Russia-Ukraine crisis is, to a certain extent, the product of the failure of Europes engaging and constraining policy towards Russia. The Inflation Reduction Act of the US shows that even the Biden administration is unwilling to accept a negotiation that reflects the advantage of Europes collective power. Regarding China, though Europe tries to establish specific policies in different fields of China-Europe relations and maintain the balance, the practical result is unsatisfactory due to logical contradictions and internal power divisions. The most notable case is the fate of the China-EU Comprehensive Agreement on Investment (CAI). As the agreement is mainly based on considering geo-economic expansion, the CAI should have been managed under the policy expectation of anegotiation-based cooperation.However, in practice, the negotiation has been severely constrained by the European Parliaments political logic that sees China as a “systemic rival,which squeezes the space for China-Europe cooperation. Europe wants to take the initiative and maintain an ideal balance between cooperation and competition, but it faces tremendous internal and external constraints. This contradiction would constantly challenge Europe to achieve transformation goals based on adaption to the changing international environment and the rational use of diplomatic resources.
Transformation of Europe and China-Europe Relations
China-Europe relations are in a new stage of structural changes within a wider context of the Centenary Zeitenwende. Great changes have occurred in Europes ideas on the world paradigm, the world order, and development, which directly impact the realistic basis and future direction of China-Europe relations. The relations would also act as an important factor in the transformation of Europe in terms of its directions, goals, and paths. The report to the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China reiterates that China “remains firm in pursuing an independent foreign policy of peace： ‘”committed to promoting a new type of international relations/5 ”committed to its fundamental national policy of opening to the outside world,” “pursues a vision of global governance featuring shared growth through discussion and collaboration,” and regards “building a human community with a shared future,, as the way forward for all the worlds peoples.4 These basic principles and policy objectives should be the starting point for properly handling China-Europe relations at the present stage.
Understanding and coping with the transformation of Europe from the perspective of building sound major power relations
The report to the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China proposes ‘enhancing coordination and positive interaction with other major countries to build major-country relations featuring peaceful coexistence, overall stability, and balanced development.” The statement points out the direction for us to correctly understand and deal with major international issues and the shaping of major power relations. The new relations aim for peaceful coexistence as the bottom line, overall stability as the condition, and balanced development as the goal. The COVID-19 pandemic and the Ukraine crisis have exacerbated interest conflict, mistrust, coordination failure, competition escalation, and intensified group confrontation among major powers, making it more difficult to realize the abovementioned goals. As an important part of major power relations, the stability of China-Europe relations relies on the overall improvement of major power relations. Still, it could also, in turn, contribute to the improvement of major power relations by making them more stable and conducive to development.
As great changes have taken place in Europes ideas on the world paradigm, the world order, and development, China and Europe need to hold honest talks to crack key issues at theoretical and policy levels, such as power shift and reconstruction of rules and order, contribute to the benign development of major power relations. The theoretical and policy basis of the US version of major power competition is the so-called ‘power politics+rule of law+stability of order.” It stigmatizes Chinas effort to control its destiny in the countrys sustainable development and improve international geo-political order as a challenge to the US hegemony and distortion of international rules and order, Europe may not accept the US s hegemonic logic, but it does have concerns about the so-called rule of law and stability of order. Thus, at the theoretical and policy level, we should develop a discourse logic that consists of “pursuing anti-hegemony and multi-polarization forward together, making rules that are universally applicable and can be optimized, and gradually improving the order.” The new discourse could help us respond to a few tough issues like ‘power competition and its rules/ anti-hegemony and anti-US； “growing power growth and sphere of influence,” “‘internal affairs and externalities” multi-polarization of power and order,” which would contribute to a more constructive image of China in world opinion, and present a benign posture of China in major power relations, especially in the relations with Europe.
Properly handling the logical change of China-Europe relations from “common prosperity” to “stronger together”
The Chinese reform and opening up together with expanding globalization set the “‘complementary cooperation and common development” became the theme of Sino-Europe relations from the end of the Cold War until a few years ago. Pursuing common interests and promoting practical cooperation was both sides’ political consensus and policy basis. However, when globalization is affected by geopolitical shocks and the power balance between China and Europe shifts, the divergence between the geopolitical goals of Europe (“a stronger Europe”) and the development goals of China (”becoming strong”)emerges and complicated the erstwhile friendly relationship, combing both similarities and risks of collision. Europe regards the geopolitical game as a way to escape the predicament and strive to shift the relationship in its favor. The move might lead to changes in the logic of Sino-Europe relations. Whether the two sides can achieve “fair competition and stronger together” has become the main issue that needs to be resolved in the future,
Europe has been worried that its international competitiveness would not last and would eventually be squeezed out of the Chinese market following the economic power shift towards China. The fear of eroding competitiveness is the primary factor that prompts Europe to turn to the geopolitical logic in its China policy; Due to the shocks brought by the pandemic and the Ukraine crisis, Europe has been facing intensified difficulties in its welfare finance, industrial transformation and upgrading, the market transformation of technology, energy shortage, and aging infrastructure. The demands for internal market integration and external economic expansion have increased, and worries and concerns about whether China can keep its market open and “follow the rules of fair competition” have risen.
The main political motive of Europes growing emphasis on values and exaggeration of “institutional competition/confrontation/, which portrays Chinas growing political influence and discourse power as a ‘political and institutional challenge/5 is to divert the internal pressure for political reform and the conflicts with populists. The rising populism in Europe and the US has made Europes mainstream circle well aware of the “crisis of democracy^ and the pressure of <<de-Westernization, due to the disputes of economic interests and political lines between Eastern and Western Europe, Portraying China as a political opponent could help it evade reform demands, distract internal conflicts, and suppress “authoritarian governments” like Poland and Hungary. It also serves the ideological goals of <re-Westernization.,, Meanwhile, out of concerns about China transforming its economic and political resources into military power and implementing “exclusive regional policy/’ Europe has also tried to achieve strategic expansion and horizontal alliance in the Asia-Pacific region through its “Indo-Paciflc Strategy” and “Global Gateway Initiative.” These European moves added complexity to Chinas neighborhood situation.
The next decade will be critical for China and Europe to achieve sustainable development and mutually assured security. Still, in the meantime, it is a high-risk period featuring intensifying major power conflicts that may cause disruptive external environments. To avoid the simultaneous occurrence and mutual superposition of development and security risks, China and Europe must strengthen economic symbiosis and enhance common interests by meeting halfway in promoting pragmatic reforms, developing a benign market environment, and releasing the dividends of market opening. In addition, in the cooperation on global and regional issues like climate change, biodiversity, public health, conflict prevention, and crisis management, the two sides should avoid politicization and securitization and provide a good working case for sound interactions among major countries. Regarding Europes geopolitical shift and the growing risk of geopolitical conflicts, China and Europe should promote strategic mutual trust to help rebuild bilateral political mutual trust. Based on economic and trade cooperation, the political mutual trust between China and Europe has been weakened due to Europes ideologization tendency, making it difficult to adapt to the changing regional and international conditions. China should seize the opportunity of its increasing influence in international security affairs and strengthen communication and cooperation with Europe in areas like building mutually beneficial security architecture, crisis management, energy, and humanitarian issues. Through these, the two sides may transcend their political differences with strategic mutual trust and rebuild political mutual trust based on ‘”economic and trade interests+security consensus.”
Realizing “cooperative coexistence” between China and Europe
To gain the upper hand in Sino-Europe relations, the EU has proposed a “triple positioning” for China which are: Building a policy and legal system protecting itself against China, freezing the process of the China-EU Comprehensive Investment Agreement, and challenging the one-China principle on the Taiwan question. The moves indicate that the logic of its China policy has shifted from “cooperative” to “non-cooperative.” Unlike the ‘”cooperative game,” based on consensus and abiding by the contractual spirit that promotes common interests, the ”non-cooperative game” is characterized by strong independent tendencies of the two sides, weak contractual cooperative spirit, and coexistence of cooperation and conflict. Currently, Sino-Europe relations have shown “non-cooperative^ signs, with emerging risks of competition or worsening toward confrontation in the fields like economy and trade, human rights, and security;
Considering the huge pragmatic mutual interests, political consensus on multilateralism, and common progress of human society, China and Europe need to work together despite differences in their ways to cope with the changing situation. To this end, the two sides should transcend current differences in mutual perception and antagonistic policy positioning and reach a new consensus on bilateral relations based on ‘”cooperative coexistence.” The cooperation could be focused on areas like economy and trade, regional afïairs, and global governance. At the same time, the “coexistence” could be reflected in exploring the feasibility of cooperation in political and security areas based on the formation of basic principles, effective mechanisms, and rules for managing differences. These confidence-building moves could transcend bilateral differences in cooperative or non-cooperative discourses and show Chinas support for Europe s pursuit of “a stronger Europe” and “‘strategic autonomy.”
To achieve cooperative coexistence, China and Europe should reasonably manage the differences through legal and policy approaches that are open and transparent, enhance each others predictability, and reduce the impact of accidents and misjudgments on overall bilateral relations. Currently, the legislation process of geopolitical-related policies is accelerating in Europe. China should also be more forward-looking and strengthen its preventive diplomacy with Europe, adding foreign relations issues into the legalization process and enhancing its policy transparency.
To achieve the goal of “cooperative coexistence,” China should strengthen its constructive participation in areas and issues of Europes concerns, incorporate joint risk prevention and crisis management into the bilateral framework of common interests, and continue to explore solutions that transform competition and confrontation factors in bilateral relations into consensuses on cooperation. According to a European Parliaments recent expert survey on future relations with China, the priority areas for China-Europe relations in the coming decade are cooperation for climate and sustainability, reducing supply-chain dependencies, and protecting intellectual property. In addition, interactions in areas like infrastructure and investment regulation, the South China Sea, human rights, 5G network security, technology cooperation, and information dissemination also attract great attention.
Three areas are included here, cooperation-dominated areas like climate change, competition-focus areas like network and technology, and areas combining cooperation logic and competition logic, like infrastructure and investment (i.e., most European experts propose to “renegotiate” the Comprehensive Agreement on Investment).5 In response to these concerns, China and Europe should try to synchronize their policy expectations and practices, effectively curb competition factors, eliminate confrontation factors while promoting cooperation, and emphasize transforming competition and confrontation factors into cooperation consensuses while making political communications and policy alignments. In addition, the cooperative coexistence between China and Europe also relies on third-party cooperation in economic, security, and social fields. If China and Europe can constantly follow the inherent laws of bilateral relations and enhance the endogenous dynamics of the relations, all unfavorable factors and negative influences in the changing situation could be overcome, and the goal of cooperative coexistence would eventually be achieved.