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Abacus | In Europe, China’s economic cold war with the West is over before it’s begun
- The economic strain between the EU and China that has dominated headlines in recent months is exaggerated
- The truth is Europe has too much to lose and is too fragmented to present an assertive front to China over bilateral economic affairs
Reading Time:4 minutes
Why you can trust SCMP
THERE HAS BEEN an enormous amount of nonsense reported in the last couple of months about the state of economic relations between the European Union and China.
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First we heard that the EU was adopting an altogether more assertive, even confrontational, stance towards Beijing.
Brussels had declared China to be a “systemic rival”, European politicians were slamming the Chinese government’s protectionist industrial policies, and the EU was vowing to stop the Chinese from obtaining cutting edge technologies by acquiring European companies.
Relations, it seemed were rapidly deteriorating.
Then, miraculously, the skies cleared, with much of the international media proclaiming “a breakthrough” trade and investment agreement at last week’s meeting between Chinese premier Li Keqiang and the EU’s top bureaucrats.
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