EU should heed rational view of relations: China Daily editorial

The European Union has followed Washington's lead in making efforts to desinicize its economy and industries after freezing a hard-negotiated EU-China investment deal three years back.

The bloc has continuously hyped up the need to reduce its so-called economic dependency on China, as well as human rights issues related to China, and adopted an increasingly interventionist approach to China's neighborhood and the Taiwan question, even while admitting the latter is China's internal affair.

Some in the EU have also echoed Washington's scaremongering that China is a "strategic threat" to Europe, citing its ties with Russia. However, these voices keep a studied silence over other countries that have retained normal trade relations with Russia, such as India, as well as the fact that it is the United States that has been the sole beneficiary of the Ukraine crisis, economically and geopolitically at the EU's expense.

But even those EU China-bashing politicians cannot deny that China has never taken the initiative to harm the EU's interests, as the limited moves it has taken so far targeting the EU, including its latest anti-dumping probes into dairy imports, brandy and pork products from the bloc following the EU threatening to impose punitive tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, are invariably countermeasures against the moves the bloc has made.

Nor can the China naysayers claim that most EU members have bought the anti-China stance they have been painstakingly peddling over the past three years. Most major EU members, including Germany, France, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands have actually kept stable and productive relations and open communication channels with the world's second-largest economy.

As such, it should be no surprise that the EU's top diplomat Josep Borrell reminded the bloc of the necessity of developing a rational perception on China amid wide concerns that the EU will be plunged into a trade war if it blindly follows the US' lead.

Speaking at a recent event in Spain, Borrell said: "We mustn't be naive." He urged the EU to uphold its own strategic autonomy in dealing with China given the US' disregard for the EU's interests.

"They [the US] don't ask us when they ban the import of Chinese cars. They're not going to ask us where those Chinese cars are going if they're not going to the US ... I am sure they will go to the European market, and this is generating a competitiveness issue with our industry," he said.

Borrell insisted that the bloc had no interest in "containing China's rise", and said it "cannot embark on systematic confrontation with China". He said that Europe must not oppose China's rise, because its rise is a fact — it is not only selling cheap T-shirts, it is at the cutting edge of all technologies, as he put it. "To oppose ourselves to the rise of China as a power is impossible — China is a great power".

Although Borrell is set to retire in October, with Kaja Kallas, the prime minister of Estonia, being nominated to succeed him, those remarks should continue to resound in the EU's policymaking circle alerting the bloc of the danger of allowing itself to be misled by the US. For the EU, the road ahead forks in two directions — its choice is between the road on which it will be "divided in paucity" or the one on which it will be "united in diversity", as its motto goes.

As Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said, China attaches great importance to China-EU relations, and believes that the two sides should view each other as partners, not rivals. Cooperation, rather than competition, should be the defining feature of the relationship; autonomy, rather than reliance, its key value; and win-win cooperation, rather than confrontation, its future.

Next year marks the 50th anniversary of China-EU diplomatic relations. China stands ready to work with the EU to deepen strategic communication, carry out dialogue and cooperation, properly settle differences and frictions, and make sure the China-EU relations will become more stable and constructive. By remaining partners, they can deliver more mutual benefits and contribute more globally.