Rules of engagement

Nirj Deva says the EU’s task is to engage China in all aspects of international relations

The EU-China friendship group in the European parliament was founded in 2006. When I was setting up this group, seven MEPs emailed me to express their interest.

When we launched the group, 11 MEPs participated; we have now some 30 members. All the group members have a deep interest in China and are working to improve the friendship between the EU and China, and to promote better understanding. The group’s concerns touch on the EU-China relationship in education and cultural exchange, development, energy, human rights, the environment, trade, cooperation, agriculture and commerce as well as many other aspects.

We have had many activities with the Chinese mission to the EU, the Chinese government, the Chinese association for friendship with foreign countries and NGOs in and outside the European parliament.

In May last year, six MEPs from the group visited China at the invitation of the Chinese people’s association for friendship with foreign countries. We had some successful meetings with senior Chinese officials and discussed many subjects. We also visited the Beijing planning exhibition hall, Olympic venue, the Shanghai aeroplane manufacturing plant, the Shanghai GM, the environmental protection bureau of Shanghai and Shanghai international travel service. We are planning to have a similar trip during the next session in 2008.

Today, the EU-China relationship is in a very active and productive phase. The relationship is in a mature, healthy and stable condition with incremental improvement in all directions. The EU is China’s largest trade partner, and China is the second-largest trade partner of the EU, after the USA.

EU-China relations are now exerting an increasing influence on the development of the world economy, with frequent high-level contact almost once a week. Not only do these relationships happen at institutional and governmental level, they also happen at NGO level, supporting the building of a market economy. It is interesting to note that today there are about 289,000 NGOs in China’s civil society. The EU has more. They provide a wide range of services and play a role in promoting closer links.

Until recently, and for thousands of years, China only exercised soft power, as we now do in the EU. Today, China is a superpower, both economically and militarily, and the country is in transition. The question is – in transition to what? If the EU is to play a part in the transition process, our relationship with China must be based on mutual respect.

It cannot be a relationship where either party feels entitled to lecture or hector the other. It must be a relationship where either party can, in a spirit of friendship and dialogue, raise areas of concern. A sign of an authentic friendship is that there are no no-go areas. We ended the Cold War by engaging with the Soviet Union and we brought peace to Europe. Similarly, we must engage with China at all levels and bring stability to the 21st century in partnership with China.

To do so, we must preserve and enlarge the institutions that underpin our rules-based global liberal economy and values, otherwise we are finished. This means China playing a full and active role in all the post-war Bretton Woods’ institutions that we have so carefully built. It also means working with China to strengthen the rules of the international order so that it serves both of our interests.

By 2020, China’s economy will be the largest in the world. We now have a choice: either we empower China to play a full and active role in the liberal open-to-all rules-based multilateral institutions built after Bretton Woods – and this includes the EU, the ACP, Rio, Bali, in addition to the UN, WTO, IMF and the World Bank – or, we force China, through our short-termism, to withdraw and inevitably, in time, to destroy these institutions and build its own to suit its superpower status and the protection of its own interests. We must make China’s interests our interests, and vice versa.

This is also why I am supporting a successful Olympic Games in Beijing. It is so important, as this is the first time in history that China is engaging with the whole world. That is why it must be a great success, not only for China, but for the whole participating world.

Our task at the beginning of the 21st century is an enormous one. It has never been done before in the entirety of our common human history, but it must be done. That task is to engage the oldest and largest nation on earth in all the affairs of planet Earth, as our partner.