Xi's initiatives for EU partnership

The president's intensive discussions, speeches and articles show the importance Chinese leadership attaches to relationship

President Xi Jinping's European trip from March 22 to Tuesday, including a visit to the European Union's headquarters, has displayed clearly the importance the EU has in China's diplomatic agenda.

To show how important the European Union is for China was one of the priorities of Xi's visit. More importantly, his trip to the Netherlands, France, Germany and Belgium, and visit to the EU's headquarters had three purposes: to explore ways to deepen and expand China-EU bilateral economic and trade cooperation; to transcend trading relations and enrich China-EU strategic cooperation; and to deepen mutual understanding, reduce trade and political frictions and realize the stable development of bilateral relations.

After struggling with its debt crisis for years, the eurozone is finally emerging from recession, but it still has to overcome the stubbornly high unemployment and weak growth. The EU countries attach great importance to the Chinese market and hope to further expand exports to China. They are also keen to attract China's outbound investment to help fuel their economic growth and increase employment opportunities. As a result, various EU countries placed high hopes on Xi's visit, which was seen as a major opportunity to expand China-EU economic and trade cooperation. European media also focused on the various economic and trade agreements signed during Xi's visit.

Economic and trade cooperation is the largest converging interest between China and the EU, and is also the cornerstone of a stable bilateral relationship. China's focus is to maintain the EU's status as China's largest trading partner and ensure smooth passage for its exports into the EU. China-EU trade in 2013 reached $559 billion, enabling the EU to be China's largest trading partner for 10 years in a row. Beijing hopes to speed up negotiations toward a China-EU investment agreement. China also wants to maintain technical cooperation with EU countries, which is reflected not only in their expanding cooperation in nuclear energy, aeronautics and astronautics, automobile and other traditional fields, but also in jointly researching and developing intelligent manufacturing, the Internet of Things, the new generation of information technology and other new growth areas. Xi's trip shows that in the eyes of the Chinese leadership the EU and its member states are not merely China's most important economic and trade partners, they are also partners in science and technology.

The European debt crisis gave birth to the popular view of the so-called European decline. However, on the contrary, the prevailing view in Chinese academic and political circles is that the EU is still an important force in the world, and that view did not change even when the debt crisis was at its severest.

In November 2013, while meeting with the EU leaders that attended the 16th China-EU summit, Xi said China and the EU both play important roles in the international arena, as they are two major powers maintaining world peace, two major markets boosting common development, and two major civilizations promoting human progress. During the meeting with European Council President Herman Van Rompuy, Xi said the two sides should jointly forge China-EU partnerships for peace, growth, reform and civilization so as to inject new impetus into China-EU cooperation and make a greater contribution to world development and prosperity.

In his article published in the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and titled "China-Germany Cooperation for the Benefit of China, Europe and the Whole World", Xi called for the two sides to go beyond simple business relations, add strategic dimensions to their bilateral cooperation with a more innovative and open mind, properly handle any differences that might arise through friendly consultations and dialogue on an equal footing, and work together to improve the international mechanisms and rules so that they will be fairer and more reasonable and in a better position to meet the needs of the times and the common aspirations of the international community.

In recent years, besides trade frictions that have affected the smooth development of China-EU relations, Europe's misgivings about China's development and intentions, as well as their differences concerning human rights, have been drags on accelerating momentum of relations. The emergence of such problems and frictions to a large extent is due to European countries' lack of an objective and comprehensive understanding of China.

Xi issued articles to the media of the Netherlands, France, Germany and Belgium, and delivered intensive speeches on multiple occasions, which is rare for a Chinese leader during a foreign tour. He elaborated with patience China's domestic reform vision and its overall diplomatic strategy with the purpose of increasing European countries' knowledge and understanding of China, and reducing their misunderstandings and doubts about China.

At the Third Nuclear Security Summit held in The Hague, Xi for the first time expounded China's nuclear security concept, vowing that China is firmly committed to strengthening its own nuclear security capabilities, working with other countries to build an international nuclear security system, and supporting international cooperation on nuclear security to realize lasting nuclear security and development.

In a speech during a ceremony to mark the 50th anniversary of full diplomatic ties between China and France, Xi said China now is an awakened lion that is "peaceful, pleasant and civilized". While in Germany, Xi stressed that China's commitment to the road of peaceful development is not an expedient, let alone just diplomatic parlance. The path of peaceful development is in China's interests and will also be conducive to a peaceful and prosperous world. So there is no reason for China to stray from this path.

Xi's just-concluded EU trip was an important component of China's great diplomatic strategy, which not only helped strengthen China-EU economic and trade cooperation, it also served as an important public diplomacy initiative to increase mutual understanding between China and the EU.

The author is vice-president of the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations.