This book draws together leading experts to examine the key issues in China-EU relations. China-EU relations are increasingly complex and affected by a number of inter-related factors, such as China’s global rise, growing China-US strategic competition, US global withdrawal, the transatlantic split, the China-Russia comprehensive "alliance," and Brexit. The book highlights the struggles of both China and the EU to look for a dynamic and durable mode of engagement in an attempt to achieve the balance between opportunities and challenges, and between partnership and rivalry. International contributors explore how to conceptualise China-EU relations and identify their differences and commonalities such as the EU’s role in China’s foreign policy process and how the EU works with China as a strategic partner. Finally, it analyses China’s and the EU’s perceptions of their own present and future roles. Shedding light on the perspectives of understanding and change in China-EU relations and its impact on multilateralism, it will appeal to researchers and professionals working in International Relations, International Political Economy and area studies who are interested in the rise of emerging powers and the changing world order.

This book provides a comprehensive review of relations between China and the EU from the perspectives of politics, economy and culture in order to provide a better understanding of the development of the China-EU Strategic Partnership over the past ten years and to explore its future direction. It goes on to discuss China-EU relations against the backdrop of global governance, as well as China’s relations with some of the EU member states. The final part of the report presents a comparative analysis of China-EU relations and EU-US relations. This book will help readers to better understand the status quo and to predict China-EU relations in the near future.

This volume brings together a group of leading international scholars to discuss how US-China-EU relations will shape the future of international politics. Arguing that these three powers will play a key role in establishing and managing a new world order, the contributors examine how a future global order is developed by the interaction of these leading actors in the international system. The authors also address how the US, China and the EU promote cooperation and manage conflict of interests on a wide spectrum of issues including new security challenges. By linking the management of international affairs to specific policy issues, the book shows that the US-China-EU triangular configuration is a pivotal relationship for understanding contemporary international relations. This book offers a comprehensive assessment of US-China-EU interactions and will be of great interest to students of Asian politics, US foreign policy, EU politics and security studies and IR in general. Robert S. Ross is Professor of Political Science at Boston College, Associate, John King Fairbank Center for East Asian Research, Harvard University, Associated Professor at the Norwegian Institute for Defence Studies, Senior Advisor, Security Studies Program, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Øystein Tunsjø is Senior Research Fellow at the Norwegian Institute for Defence Studies. Zhang Tuosheng is director of the research department and senior fellow at the China Foundation for International and Strategic Studies.

Today, as China's influence in the world grows and as the European Union moves to strengthen its position in international affairs, it is all the more critical for U.S. policy leaders to take careful stock of China-Europe relations and their implications for U.S. interests. Europe-China relations have become increasingly regularized, institutionalized, and mutually beneficial, encompassing a broadening range of political, economic, military, scientific, technological, educational, and cultural ties. The China question has arisen as an area of potential transatlantic disagreement, especially over the arm embargo issue, but also on broader concerns of global order, multipolarity, balancing U.S. power, and economic competition. Given the political, economic and security-related importance of China and Europe to the United States, improving China-Europe relations pose important challenges and opportunities for U.S. interests. These developments may not only challenge the U.S. position vis-à-vis China and Europe; they also could contribute to an increasingly competitive, confrontational, and ultimately detrimental deterioration in traditionally strong transatlantic relations, while also further exacerbating persistent mistrust in U.S.-China ties. Were U.S.-Europe-China relations to deteriorate, Washington could lose out on the enormous strategic opportunities that would encourage positive political, economic, and security-related outcomes in China, which favor U.S., European, and Chinese interests over the longer term.

This book examines the power transition between the US and China, and the implications for Europe and Asia in a new era of uncertainty. The volume addresses the impact that the rise of China has on the United States, Europe, transatlantic relations, and East Asia. China is seeking to use its enhanced power position to promote new ambitions; the United States is adjusting to a new superpower rivalry; and the power shift from the West to the East is resulting in a more peripheral role for Europe in world affairs. Featuring essays by prominent Chinese and international experts, the book examines the US–China rivalry, the changing international system, grand strategies and geopolitics, foreign policy, geo-economics and institutions, and military and technological developments. The chapters examine how strategic, security, and military considerations in this triangular relationship are gradually undermining trade and economics, reversing the era of globalization, and contributing to the breakdown of the US-led liberal order and institutions that will be difficult to rebuild. The volume also examines whether the adversarial antagonism in US–China relations, the tension in transatlantic ties, and the increasing rivalry in Europe–China relations are primarily resulting from leaders’ ambitions or structural power shifts. This book will be of much interest to students of Asian security, US foreign policy, European politics, and International Relations in general.

Written by a hugely experienced team of international contributors from China, Europe and the US, this book takes an innovative and insightful look at one of the most important bilateral relationships in international relations this century.

In this edited volume, a set of issue and country experts tackle questions regarding China’s current rise to power within the current international economic and political order. The current international system is governed by a “Western” conception of order and based on the primacy of post–World War II rules, drawn from liberal models of capitalism and democracy practiced in the US and in Western Europe. In this context, the most important and most uncertain questions facing the West over the next decade concern how the EU and the US will respond to China’s rapid growth. Will the transatlantic relationship hold and become stronger, faced with this new economic and geopolitical challenge? Or will the US and the EU—an increasingly prominent global player—compete for economic and political advantage? After a brief introduction laying out the circumstances of China’s economic and political rise and the challenges that this poses to the existing international order, the book proceeds in three sections. The first section provides competing theoretical perspectives on China’s rise in a historical context. The second section provides a distinctly Chinese perspective on China’s current rise. The third section looks at responses from the United States and the European Union, focusing on both economic and security issues as well as the implications of China’s rise for US-EU relations. This book is relevant to both scholars and policymakers concerned with Chinese domestic politics and foreign policy, US foreign policy, EU foreign policy, China-US relations, China-EU relations, international security, international political economy and emerging markets.