Understanding the shift crucial for progress

Stephan Keukeleire says one of the biggest challenges for China will be to deal with the rising inequality between the fast-rising ranks of the rich and those at the other end of the economic scale. Provided to China Daily

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The "successful Chinese model" is increasingly being copied by other countries, an expert on EU foreign policy says.

Stephan Keukeleire says this seems to be a "more attractive model" for developing and emerging countries than what is promoted by Europe.

Keukeleire and Tom Delreux, both professors at the University of Leuven in Belgium, have just published an updated version of their analysis of EU foreign policy.

The 390-page book, The Foreign Policy of the European Union, examines the bloc's relationships with the rest of the world.

Speaking from his office at the university, one of the world's oldest tertiary institutions, Keukeleire is keen to carefully balance any reservations he has about China by acknowledging the successes it has achieved since 2008, when an earlier report was published.

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"We are more positive about China this time, and it has good reason to take the positions it does. The important thing is to avoid seeing things as black and white, as some commentators do."

While Brussels has accused China of not respecting human rights, Keukeleire says, Beijing can point to double standards by the EU, particularly its lack of attention to "collective" human rights. These include the right to subsistence and the right to development, he says.

If the "important principle" of the right to subsistence is defined as having the minimum necessary to support life, China's leaders deserve praise, he says.

"In a relatively short period of time it has ensured that large parts of China's population has been hauled out of poverty."

An estimated 200 million Chinese may still live below the poverty line, but government efforts to tackle the problem "is something Western diplomats would do well to understand better".

China may have "increasing assertiveness" but its leaders still face "considerable challenges", including ensuring food supplies for the country's 1.3 billion people, he says.

In the book, Keukeleire and Delreux speak of "conceptual gaps" regarding the same notions and values.

Europeans "often ignore or even do not know about concepts that are important to China", they say.

"It is evident that the often conflicting interests between the EU and China explain in large part the generally disappointing development of relations between the two sides."

Keukeleire says one of the biggest challenges facing China in the near future, apart from trying to guarantee internal stability, will be dealing with rising inequality between the fast-rising ranks of the rich and those at the other end of the economic scale.