This lecture analyses the challenges inherent to the nearly constant high tensions between China and the US and the development of sound relations with the rest of the developed industrial countries.
The nearly constant high tensions between China and the US make the development of sound relations with the rest of the developed industrial countries – especially the EU and its member states – a priority for China. This lecture analyses the challenges inherent to these relations. From ideological differences in the fields of trade, economic structural change, high-tech decoupling and global governance, to the US pushing Europe – ever more so, following the 2020 presidential election – to put pressure on China and support the United States’ confrontational policy; the challenges are manifold.
Currently, one prominent matter is the China–EU Comprehensive Agreement of Investment (CAI). It will be a test in itself for the CAI to overcome year-long traditions of practice and implementation, not to mention the uncertainty surrounding its ratification by the European Parliament. Moreover, Europe may prioritise improving its relations with the US under the Biden Presidency at the expense of China. On the strategic/military- and human rights fronts, the EU has been moving closer to the US vis-à-vis China since the inauguration of the Biden Presidency. Currently, it is hard to tell whether further alienation between Europe and China will go hand in hand with a deterioration of China–US relations.
*** This public lecture is co-organised with the Istituto Affari Internazionali, within the framework of JOINT, a project that has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 959143 ***
Speaker: Yinhong Shi (Renmin University of China)
Organiser: Giulio Pugliese (University of Oxford and European University Institute)
Chair: Francesca Ghiretti (Istituto Affari Internazionali)