China and the EU as Global Actors: Challenges and Opportunities for Joint Cooperation

This paper examines the level of cooperation which China and the EU undertake on global issues, especially with regard to the future roles of international organizations such as the UN, the IMF, the World Bank, the G20, the form and practice of multilateralism, the prospects and direction of a multipolar/core world, and whether the two tend to be partners rather than competitors on issues of climate change and energy policy. It applies the approach of international security cooperation and relies primarily on documentary evidence (e.g., communiqués on global or regional governance aspects, issued at EU-China summits or separately by each). This paper argues that the “misunderstanding” on principles between the EU and China is at odds with the growing economic interdependencies between the two sides. The EU and China, two of the pillars in the emerging multipolar order, have fundamentally opposed attitudes to key aspects of global politics, such as sovereignty and multilateralism, and these differences are bound to create further tensions in the development of global governance regimes in the future. The originality of this paper lies in that it moves beyond the traditional form of investigating on how each China and the EU perceive each other in cooperation terms by focusing instead on the level of cooperation both partners pursue with regard to multilateralism and within the activities of international organizations.