This report examines key aspects of the European Union-China economic relationship, including trade, investment and China's key strategic project overseas, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). We conclude that China is, and will continue to be, a major trade and investment partner for EU countries. In this context, it seems clear that regardless of the direction of the United States-China relationship, the EU needs to explore options for fruitful co-existence with China. Trade continues to be the least problematic aspect of the EU-China economic relationship, although challenges need to be dealt with in a number of areas. There is hardly any EU-China trade in services, and the value added of Chinese exports and competition on third markets is increasing. As for investment, although EU companies have built up more foreign direct investment in China than the other way around, Chinese investment in Europe is growing and has focused strongly on technology. This raises the question of whether the EU should fear losing its technological edge, especially when Chinese state-owned companies might distort competition, not only in China, but also overseas through acquisitions. Finally, we review the significance of the BRI from the European perspective. The BRI offers potential trade gains for Europe by improving physical connectivity with countries along the route to China, but it also poses challenges for the EU. The main challenge is China's increasing soft power, which is being felt in the EU's neighbourhood and even in a growing number of EU countries. A more united approach to managing the EU-China economic relationship is required to improve the bargaining power of EU countries when dealing with China.

This book highlights the emerging bidirectional interactions between Europe—primarily the EU—and Asia in the fields of political economy, development, environmental policy, security, diplomacy, and inter-institutional relations within the context of two recent global trends: the rise of China and the growing withdrawal of the U.S. from multilateral commitments. The volume incorporates nine different aspects and dimensions of Asian-European relations. In recent decades, Asia has (re-)gained rising importance on the world stage, which also entails closer interconnections with Europe. In an age of receding American global leadership and reduced commitments to its European allies, the EU and its member states have increasingly become more open to seeking and considering new partnerships. The rising economic prowess of Asia has made it of particular interest for European states. The book’s focus lies on potential challenges and opportunities in the bidirectional interactions between European and Asian states and institutions.

Over the past 30 years, merger control has become well-established around the world with broad consensus around its ambit and objectives. That consensus has fractured in recent years. Enforcement today is at a critical juncture, facing an array of challenges and calls for reform unprecedented in their scope and intensity. Authored by leading legal practitioners, economists, enforcers and jurists, this timely Research Handbook on Global Merger Control discusses those challenges and predicts how merger control is likely to evolve.

This book investigates how Europe should position itself in an era of growing Chinese-American rivalry. The volume explores the contemporary relationship and ongoing dynamics between three of the most powerful players in today’s international relations - the USA, China and Europe. It claims that the intensifying antagonism between Washington and Beijing requires a paradigm shift in European strategic thinking, and takes a trilateral perspective in analysing key issue areas, such as trade, technology, investment, climate change, the BRI, sub-national contacts, maritime security and nuclear non-proliferation. Using this analysis, the work seeks to offer original policy recommendations that respond to a number of dilemmas Europe can no longer avoid, including the trade-off between European interests and values in a harsher global environment, the question of whether Europe should align with one of the two superpowers, Europe’s military dependence on a US pivoting to the Asia-Pacific, and possible trade-offs between global and regional governance efforts. The key finding is that Europe must follow a much more pragmatic and independent approach to its foreign and security affairs. This book will be of much interest to students of EU policy, foreign policy, Chinese politics, US politics and IR in general.

Keukeleire and Delreux demonstrate the scope and diversity of the European Union's foreign policy, showing that EU foreign policy is broader than the Common Foreign and Security Policy and the Common Security and Defence Policy, and that areas such as trade, development, environment and energy are inextricable elements of it. This book offers a comprehensive and critical account of the EU's key foreign relations – with its neighbourhood, with the US, China and Russia, and with emerged powers – and argues that the EU's foreign policy needs to be understood not only as a response to crises and conflicts, but also as a means of shaping international structures and influencing long-term processes. This third edition reflects recent changes and trends in EU foreign policy as well as the international context in which it operates, addressing issues such as the increasingly contested international order, the conflict in Ukraine, the migration and refugee crisis, Brexit and Covid-19. The book not only clarifies the formal procedures in EU foreign policy-making but also elucidates how it works in practice. The third edition includes new sections and boxes on 'strategic autonomy', European arms exports, the EU's external representation, the 'Brussels Effect', and decentring and gender approaches to EU foreign policy. Up to date, jargon-free and supported by its own website (eufp.eu), this systematic and innovative appraisal of this key policy area is suitable for undergraduate and postgraduate students, as well as practitioners.

This book provides a novel theoretical framework to understand EU-China diplomatic relations. The existing scholarly literature on EU-China relations is characterised by a dichotomous distinction between material and ideational factors and overemphasises the ‘interest versus value’ motif undergirding EU-China relations. The diplomacy and future direction of the relationship seem as opaque as their extent remains incalculably complex. This book takes us beyond binary motives by introducing a novel theoretical model of diplomatic relationship-building that brings to the fore the more nuanced and latent factors to make sense of EU-China diplomatic relationship-building; the new theory captures the ‘relational’ nature of diplomatic relationship-building by integrating the social layer of ‘intentions’ in understanding international diplomacy. This study further sheds light on the opportunities and challenges in enhancing EU-China relations, through a comparative in-depth investigation of the processes, practices and politics of EU-China climate change and agricultural-trade relations over the past two decades. The book draws on a rich collection of original data, encompassing over 100 interviews with stakeholders of EU-China relations conducted from 2015–2023; strengthened by participant observation at EU and Chinese institutional headquarters and in diplomatic fora that has taken place over the past ten years. Enriching these data are newly disclosed official minutes and documentation regarding EU-China negotiations and cooperation. This book will be of much interest to students of diplomacy studies, Chinese politics, EU politics and international relations in general.

With globalization on the wane in a world fractured by growing great power competition, Hoo and McKinney argue that regionalism is likely to re-emerge as a focal area of significance and interest in the coming years. In Asia, how regionalism evolves is inescapably linked to China’s part in this story. Hoo, McKinney and their contributors will help readers better understand regionalism as it is approached, conceived and practiced by China. Looking past the conventional attention on the Belt-Road Initiative, the contributors examine the evolving perspectives on regionalism within China, the forms which this regionalism has taken and the implications for the strategic order in Asia. This includes a focus on newer architecture such as the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB); lesser-known mechanisms such as the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia (CICA) and the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation (LMC); and more traditional ones such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). A valuable resource for scholars and students of China’s foreign relations, and of Asian regionalism and strategic order.

This book offers critical insights into the China-led Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) from an EU perspective. It analyzes the political, cultural, and diplomatic effectiveness of Xi's efforts to expand socio-cultural ties and build new trade corridors between Europe and the Far East, and sheds light on the lasting success and influence of China-led economic programs. The book is divided into three parts. The first part provides an overview of the various dimensions of the BRI initiative, including the challenges and opportunities of the EU-China trade relationship, China's geopolitical interests, and foreign policy approaches. The second part analyzes BRI cooperation from the perspective of the business sector, while the third part presents case studies that examine the impacts and responses of various European countries to the BRI.

"A textbook summary of how international investment law developed over the past fifty years may go something like this. States signed thousands of largely similar international investment agreements (IIAs) to protect the property of their investors abroad. Most of these IIAs allowed foreign investors to sue host states via investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) for treaty breaches. ISDS was barely used until the late 1990s. When ISDS claims finally surged, states realized that their treaties offered greater investment protection than intended. States reacted by narrowing the commitments offered in newly concluded agreements. This backlash against investment arbitration resulted in a "new generation" of IIAs that rebalanced investment protection and host state regulatory autonomy"--

2018 marks the 40th anniversary of the start of China's reform and opening up policy, which created China's growth miracle with an annual average growth rate of around 9.5 percent. China's rapid rise and internationalization has also generated profound impacts both regionally and globally. This edited book aims to bring together academics and researchers at policy institutions to discuss ongoing research on a wide range of theoretical and empirical issues related to China's rapid rise and internationalization from both regional and global perspectives.