Fudan Prof. Jian Junbo on EU-China Relations and the Upcoming Summit

"Much like the recent US-China summit, the EU-China summit will not resolve the most serious disagreements ... But it can lay the political groundwork for resolving and easing these differences."

“The difference in the way China and the EU present their policies towards one another – with the EU emphasising differences and conflicts, and China emphasising similarities and cooperation – reflects diametrically opposed ways of thinking about their bilateral relations: China hopes to reduce the risk of conflict by looking for space for cooperation through a search for common ground while retaining differences; whereas the European side hopes that by facing problems squarely, it will find opportunities for their resolution, which will then lay the groundwork for potential cooperation.” – Jian Junbo (简军波)

The 24th EU-China summit will be held in Beijing on Thursday. Expectations are low on both sides for this first in-person summit in four years. “I think we need to be slightly realistic that there’s not a kind of single outstanding deliverable which will be crowning the summit”, commented one senior EU official to Politico.

To understand how Beijing may be assessing its relationship …