Emanuele Scimia

Opinion | Why cooperation on the coronavirus epidemic won’t help upgrade the China-EU relationship

Beijing should consider offering Europe concessions in trade and investment, or risk seeing it join hands with the US. After all, China and the European Union share a common cause: to protect multilateralism from Trump’s approach to world affairs

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EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on the sidelines of the Asia-Europe Meeting in Madrid, Spain, last December 16. Photo: Xinhua

Emanuele Scimia

Published: 1:00am, 25 Feb 2020Updated: 1:28am, 25 Feb 2020

Apart from issuing travel bans to and from China, the European Union and its member states have not hesitated to help the Chinese authorities tackle the spread of the coronavirus – something Beijing has publicly acknowledged.

But do not misunderstand, cooperation on the Covid-19 outbreak will not spark closer Sino-European relations. If anything, the EU could be tempted to seize on China’s difficulties to exact trade and investment concessions.

At the annual Munich Security Conference on February 15, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said China would deepen collaboration and upgrade the relationship with Europe. However, European leaders did not seem receptive to his message. Instead, they voiced concern about the challenge posed by a rising China, a position in line with that of the United States.

In a speech at the Brussels-based Centre for European Reform on February 4, EU Trade Commissioner Phil Hogan said: “There are few challenges more complex than China.” Given its economic growth, geopolitical ambition and distinct state capitalism model, Beijing is at once a strategic partner, a competitor and a systemic rival, according to the European bloc.

The recent US-China phase-one trade deal aimed at ending their trade war has irked the Europeans, who view Beijing’s commitment to buying US$200 billion of American goods and services over the next two years as market distortion.

In a February 8 opinion piece, EU foreign-policy chief Josep Borrell said bluntly that Europeans did not want to be the “losers” in the competition between China and the US, meaning that the EU must “relearn the language of power”.