EU-China Security Relations

Executive Summary

EU-China relations are one of the most important bilateral relations in the world. However, when reviewing the relationship between Brussels and Beijing, most of the analysts focus on economic and trade issues. The EU’s rising intention to become a global security actor and China’s increasingly active involvement in international affairs motivate the two sides to pay more attention to their security relations. This policy brief is to examine the following questions: how is the security relationship between the EU and China evolving? What are the converging and diverging interests and concerns? What are the major issues that the EU and China will need to address to build more robust security ties? And how is the bilateral security relationship likely to develop in the coming years? As a conclusion, this policy brief points out that uncertainty exists in EU-China future security relations. More dialogue and consultation mechanisms should be introduced at different levels and for different issues in the first pillar of EU-China institutional arrangements in order for EU-China security relations to be further enhanced.

About the Author

Jing Men is the Director of EU-China Research Centre and the InBev-Baillet Latour Chair of European Union-China Relations in the Department of EU International Relations and Diplomacy Studies, College of Europe. She obtained a PhD in Political Science (2004) at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. Her research and teaching focuses on EU-China relations. She is the founder of the electronic journal EU-China Observer, launched at the beginning of 2009, which publishes articles on EU-China relations.