EU ignores China at its own peril

Brussels has to be proactive in pushing pacts and not be sidetracked by internal issues

The complex but irreversible integration of the European continent and the renaissance of Chinese civilization arguably constitute the most significant factors of change of our time. The wise articulation of these two processes can be mutually enriching and a source of growth and stability for our global village.

The 40th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the European Union and China is an occasion to acknowledge the unprecedented richness of Eurasian links. But it also is a good time to present ways to reverse the diminishing significance of the Sino-European relationship in comparison with dynamics connecting other centers of power.

Forty years ago, when the European Community established diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China, it was an association of nine nations evolving in a bipolar world marked by the rivalry between the US and the USSR. In four decades, the map of Eurasia has been profoundly transformed. What has become today's European Union is composed of 28 member states forming the world's largest economic bloc. Meanwhile, China, the new economic powerhouse, is gradually regaining a position of centrality within an increasingly multipolar global system.

With two-way trade worth 467 billion euros ($529 billion) last year, the relations between Beijing and Brussels are characterized by an unprecedented economic interdependence. The EU is, indeed, China's top trading partner and China is, after the United States, the EU's second-biggest business counterpart.

Economic interactions are complemented by numerous official dialogues covering a wide range of issues from intellectual property rights to urbanization or the environment.

The EU-China 2020 Strategic Agenda for Cooperation and the potential of an investment agreement can give the impression of a highly dynamic partnership.

However, the appreciation of what has been accomplished should not distract from the changes within the two regions already impacting the way they view and treat each other.

As shown by the EU's incapacity a decade ago to lift an anachronistic arms embargo on Beijing but also by the failure of an attempt to develop Sino-European cooperation in a global navigation satellite system, it has often been difficult for Brussels to implement a genuinely autonomous policy toward China.

In the conduct of its global diplomacy, Beijing has understood the fact that, for the foreseeable future, a group of 28 members will not be able to conduct a truly independent foreign policy.

If the EU's lack of cohesiveness has diminished the effectiveness of Brussels' power, the rise of Euroskeptism in the post-2008 financial crisis affects the EU's very capacity to initiate actions. Dealing with such intrinsic limitations and what increasingly looks like an inoperative EU, Washington stands as Beijing's main interlocutor on strategic issues. And as far as Europe is concerned, China has reactivated relations with Berlin, Paris, London and Rome, thus contributing to the eclipse of Brussels.

China's continuous support of the euro and Beijing's continuing confidence in the eurozone throughout the worst moments of the Greek sovereign debt crisis, create a striking contrast between the economic and financial weight of the EU-China relations and their political and strategic lightness.

If the promise of the emergence of Brussels as an independent center of political power did not materialize, the perception of Beijing in the eyes of Brussels is also evolving. Preoccupied in its east by the situation in Ukraine and its effects on EU-Russia relations, concerned by the political disorder in its south generated by pressures from migrants, and challenged from within by the persistent fragilities of the eurozone and the uncertainties thrown up by the UK referendum, Brussels has turned its attention inward. In this situation, the risk is that Beijing does not stand anymore as one of the EU's top priorities, with the Chinese economic slowdown indirectly reinforcing Brussels' "pivot to Europe".

For the EU to de-prioritize Beijing would be an enormous mistake: short-term fluctuations are not long-term trends, and European strategists should remain focused on the idea that by 2050 the Chinese economy will be twice the size of the US economy. The indispensable elements for a new momentum in the EU-China relations are trade facilitation, the construction of the new Silk Road and the exploration of a new digital Silk Road.

An agreement on investment is clearly needed but EU-China trade can also be boosted by the gradual mutual opening of the two markets. The Trans-Pacific Partnership will facilitate trade among 12 Pacific rim countries, and China, having signed free trade agreements with several TPP members, will indirectly benefit.

In parallel with the advancement of the TPP, the EU and the US are negotiating the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, or TTIP. But the two edges of the Eurasian continent should enter talks to open a new chapter in their economic exchanges. Following more than three decades of reform and opening-up, China has become not only the factory of the world but also the market for the world, which offers European exporters unprecedented opportunities.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has structured his global diplomatic action around the Belt and Road Initiative with the objective of upgrading connectivity across Eurasia and the Indian Ocean. Beijing and Brussels have to create the political and financial conditions for Chinese and European companies to co-build the infrastructures under this vision.

Besides the Silk Road Fund, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the BRICS' New Development Bank, China and the EU could initiate a Sino-European Silk Road fund.

If Brussels is unable to answer Beijing's call to build the new Silk Road, China will pursue its goal alone or with other proactive partners and the EU will rapidly find itself at the periphery of an economic and diplomatic network designed and realized on Chinese terms.

While the two edges of the ancient Silk Road were Europe and China, the new Silk Road connects Asia's Far East and Africa, seen by many in Beijing as the continent of the future. By entering strategic cooperation to co-build the New Silk Road, the EU and China would have to coordinate their African policies, bringing peace and prosperity all along the Afro-Eurasian axis.

The joint statement of the 2015 China-EU Summit, "The way forward after 40 years of China-EU cooperation", rightly mentioned trade, the new Silk Road and the digital economy but declarations have to be swiftly followed by decisive actions backed by strong political commitment.

On the way to an organized multipolarity, it is a nonexclusive EU-China-US trio that is needed and neither the US-China G2 nor the traditional Euro-American Western alliance can be a substitute for long-term stability and prosperity. But the trio will remain incomplete if the EU-China partnership does not match the vitality of EU-US and US-China relations.

Romano Prodi is a former prime minister of Italy (1996-1998, 2006-2008) and a former president of the European Commission (1999-2004). David Gosset is director of the Academia Sinica Europaea at China Europe International Business School, and founder of the Euro-China Forum and the New Silk Road Initiative. The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.