Political Values in Europe-China Relations
What role do political values play in Europe-China relations 70 years after the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights?
In its fourth annual report, the European Think-tank Network on China (ETNC), of which Ifri is a founding and coordinating member, examines how political values – namely democracy, human rights and the rule of law – shape Europe-China relations today. China experts from seventeen leading European research institutions have compared how these values inform the foreign policies of European states and the EU toward the most powerful autocracy in the world, the People’s Republic of China (PRC), and how the PRC influences the debate on political values in Europe.
The results display four different patterns of behavior among European countries: vocal and active; active and discreet; passive; and passive and potentially counteractive.
The report finds that three factors are of particular importance in making sense of differences in behavior among European countries:
- First, while there has been a general downgrading of the importance of political values in the approaches to China by most European states, younger democracies have been more affected by this trend.
- Second, states with a higher per capita gross domestic product tend to be more active in the field of political values in their relations with China. Close trade relations with China also correlate with a higher level of activity in this field.
- Third, Chinese pressure has led some European states to reconsider their level of activity in promoting democracy, human rights and the rule of law. Even so, they have not taken political values entirely off the agenda.
Despite China’s increased efforts to promote its image abroad, in all the countries analyzed the general public and large sections of the political elite and media hold negative views of China’s political system.
Chapters of the report:
1) The role of political values in Europe-China relations
Tim Nicholas Rühlig, Björn Jerdén, John Seaman, Frans-Paul van der Putten, Miguel Otero-Iglesias and Alice Ekman
2) Belgium’s multilayered China policy: A case of principled pragmatism?
Bruno Hellendorff
3) The Czech Republic’s values-based policy towards China reconsidered
Rudolf Fürst
4) Discreet diplomacy: Denmark’s pragmatic stance towards China
Andreas Bøje Forsby
5) Political values in France-China relations, 2018: The start of a policy shift under Emmanuel Macron
Alice Ekman
6) Germany’s promotion of liberal values vis-à-vis China: Adapting to new realities in political relations
Lucrezia Poggetti and Kristin Shi-Kupfer
7) Sino-Greek relations: Marked by values or opportunism?
Plamen Tonchev
8) Absent political values in a pragmatic Hungarian China policy
Tamas Matura
9) Political values in Italy’s China policy: A “constructive approach”
Nicola Casarini, Lorenzo Mariani, and Fabio Angiolillo
10) Latvia: A pragmatic approach without making significant concessions to China
Una Aleksandra Bērziņa-Čerenkova and Māris Andžāns
11) Human rights promotion and the changing role of political values in Netherlands-China relations
Frans-Paul van der Putten
12) Political values in Norway’s relations with China: Standing ground or giving in?
Hans Jørgen Gåsemyr
13) Poland’s modest approach to a values-based China policy
Justyna Szczudlik
14) Portugal-China relations: Political values play second fiddle
Carlos Rodrigues
15) Political values: A sensitive issue almost absent from Romania’s relations with China
Iulia Monica Oehler-Şincai
16) Political values in Spain-China relations: Empathy, discretion and patience
Mario Esteban and Miguel Otero-Iglesias
17) The prudent proponent Sweden’s normative China policy
Viking Bohman and Anna Michalski
18) UK-China: Broadening the values agenda
Tim Summers
19) Political values in EU-China relations: Towards a “principled” or a “pragmatic” approach?
Tim Nicholas Rühlig
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Political Values in Europe-China Relations
Author(s)
John SEAMAN
Research Fellow, Center for Asian Studies, Ifri
Alice EKMAN
Former Research Fellow, Head of China research, Center for Asian Studies, Ifri
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Center for Asian Studies
Asia is a nerve center for multiple global economic, political and security challenges. The Center for Asian Studies provides documented expertise and a platform for discussion on Asian issues to accompany decision makers and explain and contextualize developments in the region for the sake of a larger public dialogue.
The Center's research is organized along two major axes: relations between Asia's major powers and the rest of the world; and internal economic and social dynamics of Asian countries. The Center's research focuses primarily on China, Japan, India, Taiwan and the Indo-Pacific, but also covers Southeast Asia, the Korean peninsula and the Pacific Islands.
The Centre for Asian Studies maintains close institutional links with counterpart research institutes in Europe and Asia, and its researchers regularly carry out fieldwork in the region.
The Center organizes closed-door roundtables, expert-level seminars and a number of public events, including an Annual Conference, that welcome experts from Asia, Europe and the United States. The work of Center’s researchers, as well as that of their partners, is regularly published in the Center’s electronic journal Asie.Visions.
European Think-tank Network on China (ETNC)
The European Think-tank Network on China (ETNC) is a gathering of China experts from a selection of European research institutes. It is devoted to the policy-oriented study of Chinese foreign policy and relations between China and European countries as well as China and the EU. It facilitates regular exchanges among participating researchers with a view to deepening the understanding within the European policy and research community and the broader public of how Europe, as a complex set of actors, relates with China and how China’s development and evolving global role is likely to impact the future of Europe. The network’s discussions and analyses take a decidedly ‘bottom-up’ approach, accounting for the various aspects of bilateral relations between European countries and China, and the points of convergence and divergence among EU member states in order to examine EU-China relations in a realistic and comprehensive way. The views presented in ETNC reports are the sole responsibility of the signed authors and do not in any way represent the views of all members of the ETNC, its participating institutions, nor the institutions with which the authors are affiliated.
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