The Evolution of the EU’s Perception of China and Its Implications

Abstract：The EU’s China policy and China-EU relations are deeply shaped by the EU’s perception of China. Since the establishment of diplomatic ties between China and the EU in 1975, the EU’s perception of China has generally evolved from viewing China as a security enabler, to a comprehensive cooperative partner, and further to an economic competitor and systemic rival. This shift in the EU’s China perception stems from the interplay of multiple intertwined factors. First, its perception is premised on the flawed illusion of reshaping China. Second, the changing balance of strength between China and the EU has fueled the EU’s China anxiety. Third, pressures arising from global changes have catalyzed its perceptual shift. As values and geopolitical considerations increasingly dominate the EU’s outlook on China, its China policy has grown toughening. This is mainly manifested in pursuing economic de-risking from China, escalating political provocations and security pressure, and strengthening US-EU coordination on China-related issues. Nevertheless, constrained by multiple factors, the toughening of the EU’s China policy and its impacts remain limited. Endowed with a unique identity and interest orientation in international affairs, the EU can neither afford to overlook China nor abandon its relations with China. Both sides should uphold the positioning of a cooperative partnership, deepen practical cooperation, and inject stability into a turbulent and changing world.

I.The Evolution of the EU’s Perception of China

Perception shapes thinking, thinking guides behavior, and behavior determines outcomes. To understand the hardening of the EU’s China policy, it is essential to analyze the evolution of the EU’s perception of China. Since the establishment of diplomatic ties between China and the EU, the EU’s perception of China has generally evolved through three major stages. 

(I)Security Enabler 

EU-China relations date back to the era of the European Economic Community (EEC). The establishment of bilateral diplomatic ties was a product of international political developments amid the Cold War landscape.In May 1975, Christopher Soames, Commissioner for External Relations of the European Economic Community, paid an official visit to China. On behalf of the EEC, he recognized the Government of the People’s Republic of China as the sole legal government representing China, acknowledged that Taiwan is an inalienable part of China’s territory, and stated that the EEC would maintain no official relations with Taiwan, including refraining from concluding any political or economic agreements with it.On this basis, China established formal diplomatic relations with the European Economic Community, and set up its Mission to the EEC in Brussels in September the same year.

(II) Comprehensive Cooperative Partner

The end of the Cold War triggered a restructuring of the global landscape, prompting the EU to reshape its relations with China based on its own needs. Starting from 1992, the European Economic Community gradually restored ties with China and reinstated China on the list of countries suitable for cooperation. In 1994, the newly established EU issued the document Towards a New Asia Strategy, stressing that strengthening cooperation with China across all fields is one of the fundamental guarantees for realizing its new Asia strategy. This reflected the EU’s growing recognition of China’s standing in Asia and its positioning of China as a key pillar of its Asia strategy. In 1995, the EU released A Long-Term Policy for EU-China Relations, advocating constructive engagement with China, the redefinition of EU-China relations, and the forging of a long-term relationship that reflects China’s global economic and political influence. The landmark significance of this document lies in the EU’s commitment to developing all-round political, economic and trade relations with China, thereby establishing a strategic policy framework for its China engagement. Compared with the Cold War era, when security considerations prevailed, the post-Cold War EU reshaped its perception of China with greater focus on long-term economic and political interests.

Though the EU no longer regarded China merely as a security enabler against external military threats after the Cold War, it continued to value dialogue and cooperation with China in the security domain, seeking new convergences of mutual security interests. In 2003, the EU issued its first European Security Strategy, highlighting the need to deepen international cooperation in addressing non-traditional security threats. For its part, China sought to sustain high-level military exchanges with the EU and gradually refine and upgrade the mechanism of strategic security consultations. Practically, the two sides conducted close collaboration in counter-terrorism, anti-piracy operations and military escort missions. Overall, the EU’s evolving perception of China gave a strong impetus to the full upgrading of the EU-China strategic partnership, ushering in an unprecedented new chapter since the establishment of diplomatic relations. The American scholar David Shambaugh described the decade from 1995 to 2005 as the honeymoon period of EU-China relations.

(III) Economic Competitor and Systemic Rival

After 2006, the EU’s perception of China gradually shifted from minor adjustments to a distorted view. In 2006, the EU issued two documents: EU and China: Closer Partnership, Greater Responsibilities and Competition and Partnership: EU–China Trade and Investment Policy. They assessed and envisioned EU-China relations from the perspectives of political and economic strategy as well as competition and cooperation policies. While the overall tone remained constructive, the pervasive critical undertones and stringent demands stood in sharp contrast to previous EU policy papers on China. The EU began to lay greater emphasis on safeguarding its own economic interests and explicitly called on China to assume more international economic, political and environmental responsibilities. Its trade strategy document even stated that China posed the most serious challenge to the EU economy, arguing that the EU should engage with China through both competition and cooperation. In March 2019, the EU released the report A Strategic Outlook for EU–China Relations. It argued that the opportunities and challenges brought by China’s development to Europe had become imbalanced, and that the EU should pursue a rebalancing of its China policy. The report defined China simultaneously as a partner for cooperation and negotiation, an economic competitor pursuing technological leadership, and a systemic rival promoting alternative governance models.

II.Causes of the Shift in the EU’s Perception of China

(I) The Flawed Premise Underlying the EU’s Perception of China

While the EU prioritizes economic interests in developing relations with China, it is driven by deeper political considerations. The EU essentially regards China as a developing and transitional country, expecting that engagement with China will advance China’s comprehensive reforms and eventually lead to a market economy, a civil society, and political pluralism. This constitutes the core rationale behind the EU’s policy of engaging with China. Implicit in the EU’s perception is a fundamental premise: a rising China ought to integrate into the Western-dominated global political and economic system through political transformation. However, China’s development path has not unfolded as the EU anticipated. As a developing country, China aims to grow its economy and advance Chinese-style modernization by fostering relations with the EU, while cultivating a favorable international environment for such endeavors. China’s development model has taken shape through dialogue and cooperation with the outside world, including the EU, since the reform and opening-up drive. The most distinctive feature of the China model is that it neither mechanically copies Western experience nor passively accepts the existing international order, but instead offers a path of institutional integration and innovation. Faced with China’s economic rise and growing international influence, the EU harbors profound disappointment and a sense of disillusionment, as China’s economic growth has not been accompanied by the political transformation the EU expected. From the EU’s perspective, a China that is economically ascendant while upholding its socialist political system remains fraught with strategic uncertainty. More importantly, the EU worries that China’s alternative development model, different from the Western traditional path, is gaining traction among an increasing number of developing countries, and may over time undermine the attractiveness and dominance of the European model.

(II) EU Anxiety Over China Driven by Shifting Power Dynamics

Economic cooperation has been the EU’s primary strategic tool for engaging with China. The EU has long sought to leverage economic ties to advance its broader agenda—securing commercial benefits while pushing for political reforms in China. When EU-China trade relations were stable and the EU held a relative power advantage, it remained confident in its engagement strategy. However, the international financial crisis and the European sovereign debt crisis severely weakened the EU, casting doubt on the viability of its integration model. Meanwhile, China’s economy continued to grow at a robust pace, and its global influence expanded steadily. This shifting balance of power has significantly eroded the EU’s self-confidence, fostering what can be described as “China anxiety”. The diminishing effectiveness of the EU’s economic leverage—its key instrument for encouraging change in China—stands as a critical factor behind the shift in its perception of China.

(III) Global Upheaval Accelerates the EU’s Perceptual Shift

The 2014 Ukraine crisis, coupled with changes in U.S.-China and U.S.-EU relations following Donald Trump’s 2017 inauguration, prompted the EU to reassess the international landscape. The EU views the global environment as having “deteriorated,” with great-power competition returning to center stage and posing significant challenges to Europe. Beyond concerns over the Ukraine crisis’s impact on European security, the EU believes that intensified U.S. competition with China has constrained Europe’s strategic room for maneuver, while China’s rise presents both economic and governance-model competition for the EU. Sensitive to its own geopolitical vulnerabilities, the EU has embraced a “geopolitical Europe” identity, triggering a profound shift in its foreign policy philosophy and approach. As a negative spillover effect, the Ukraine crisis and the EU’s evolving strategic narrative have reshaped its perception of China: On one hand, the EU has grown more attentive to the impact of deepening China-Russia relations on Europe, linking EU-China ties to the Ukraine crisis. As EU-Russia relations deteriorated, anti-China sentiments intensified, gradually framing China as a strategic rival. On the other hand, while reducing energy dependence on Russia, the EU has also pursued “de-risking” in economic relations with China, seeking supply chain diversification. In short, pressures from global upheaval have compelled the EU to reexamine its values, triggering shifts in its foreign policy attitudes and actions.

III.The Hardening of the EU’s China Policy and Its Limitations

As values and geopolitical considerations come to dominate the EU’s perception of China, the EU’s China policy has gradually shifted from the previous soft diplomacy emphasizing engagement and cooperation toward estrangement, competition and even confrontation with China amid a tough stance. Although the EU claims it has no intention of decoupling from China or engaging in conflict with it, the symptoms of a hardened China policy have already become evident.

(I) Main Manifestations of the Hardening of the EU’s China Policy

First, at the strategic and economic level, the EU pursues China de-risking, securitizes economic issues, and adopts selective cooperation with China. In the name of de-risking, the EU politicizes and securitizes economic, trade and technological cooperation with China, greatly narrowing the scope for China-EU cooperation. Guided by a game-playing mindset, the EU only conducts dialogue and selective cooperation with China in specific fields such as trade, economic affairs and climate change. Second, in the political and security domain, the EU has intensified provocations and pressure on China with growing confrontational acts. It has escalated provocations on Hong Kong, Taiwan, Tibet and other related issues, grossly interfering in China’s internal affairs. Such moves are clearly intended to put pressure on China, standing in sharp contrast to the EU’s previous cautious attitude on China-related security affairs. Finally, against the backdrop of the protracted Ukraine crisis and intensifying China-U.S. rivalry, the EU has continuously strengthened coordination and cooperation with the United States on China-related affairs.

(II) Resistance to Hardening and Its Limited Impact

The hardening of the EU’s China policy has led to increased frictions between China and the EU, risking a further downturn in bilateral relations. However, constrained by multiple factors, the impact of this policy hardening on China-EU relations remains limited, and such a hardening trend is not irreversible.

First, China-EU relations possess greater strategic resilience. At its core, the relationship is defined by partnership and cooperation. This is fully demonstrated by the establishment and orderly operation of over 70 consultation and dialogue mechanisms, including the China-EU Leaders’ Meeting and High-Level Strategic Dialogue. Despite current challenges, both sides share a consensus on upholding the broader framework of cooperation, as mutual support and deepening mutually beneficial cooperation align with their common interests. Although the EU’s China policy shows a hardening tendency, the inherent resilience of China-EU relations will provide a buffer to prevent relations from spiraling out of control.

Second, the EU cannot afford to abandon the benefits of cooperation with China. Against a backdrop of sluggish global economic recovery and weak world trade, the EU faces additional challenges of soaring energy prices and high inflation. Under such circumstances, the strong economic ties and deep-rooted cooperation between China and the EU make the relationship resistant to rupture. China and the EU are each other’s second-largest trading partners, with bilateral trade reaching USD 785.8 billion in 2024. China is not only the EU’s largest source of imports but also a major export destination for European goods across sectors. Beyond traditional trade, the EU’s pursuit of economic growth, digital transformation, and green development in the digital age cannot be achieved without cooperation with China. In the long run, the EU’s economic interests in China will, to some extent, curb the momentum of its policy hardening.

Finally, intra-EU divergences and U.S.-EU differences will dilute the impact of the EU’s hardening China policy. On one hand, EU member states have varying interests in China policy (with some prioritizing trade and economic cooperation), making it difficult to form a fully unified tough stance. Certain Eastern European countries, focused on job creation from Chinese investment, maintain a relatively positive attitude toward China-EU cooperation. The "Europeanization" of member states’ foreign policies remains a challenging process, hindering the formation of a unified EU China policy.

On the other hand, divergent interests regarding China undermine the effectiveness of U.S.-EU coordination. While U.S.-EU cooperation on China-related trade, technology, investment, and export controls has strengthened, their strategic economic coordination lags behind. The Greenland dispute provoked by the Trump administration reflects the profound dilemmas of alliance politics amid the restructuring of the international order. It has not only shaken the foundation of mutual trust underpinning NATO but also exposed the alliance’s institutional failure in reconciling major internal conflicts of interest. Trump’s repeated actions crossing redlines for allies have triggered profound European reflection on the fundamental nature of the 70-year U.S.-EU alliance, prompting Europe to more actively diversify its diplomatic space—including engaging China to hedge against growing uncertainties in U.S.-EU relations.

IV.Conclusion 

Establishing a correct strategic perception is the key to finding the right way for countries to coexist. Only with a correct perception can mutual respect, peaceful coexistence, and win-win cooperation be grounded. The root cause of the increasing challenges in current China-EU relations lies in the EU’s serious distortion of its perception of China. Although the EU’s China policy shows a hardening trend, based on its unique identity and interest orientation in international affairs, the EU cannot ignore China, let alone abandon its relations with China. Avoiding a complete rupture of relations with China is the bottom line of the EU’s China policy, which means there is still room for shaping China-EU relations, and it is still possible to strive for their positive development. (Author: Zhao Huaipu, Professor, Institute of International Relations, China Foreign Affairs University)

AI translation, with some omissions.