China-Europe Relations: What Is at Stake for the United States?

Today, as China’s influence in the world grows and as the European Union moves to strengthen its position as a more cohesive and effective voice in international affairs, it is all the more critical for U.S. policy leaders to take careful stock of China-Europe relations and their implications for U.S. interests. Europe-China relations have become increasingly regularized, institutionalized, and mutually beneficial, encompassing a broadening range of political, economic, military, scientific, technological, educational, and cultural ties. The China question has arisen as an area of potential transatlantic disagreement, especially over the arm embargo issue, but also on broader concerns of global order, multipolarity, balancing U.S. power, and economic competition.

Given the political, economic and security-related importance of China and Europe to the United States, and their steadily improving relationship, these developments pose important challenges and opportunities for U.S. interests. These developments may not only challenge the U.S. position vis-à-vis China and Europe; they also could contribute to an increasingly competitive, confrontational, and ultimately detrimental deterioration in traditionally strong transatlantic relations, while also further exacerbating persistent mistrust in U.S.-China ties.

Were U.S.-Europe-China relations to deteriorate, Washington could lose out on the enormous strategic opportunities that would encourage positive political, economic, and security-related outcomes in China, which favor U.S., European, and Chinese interests over the longer term.

Key questions need to be addressed. What are the most important drivers and developments in contemporary China-Europe relations? Will rapidly developing China-Europe relations drive a strategic wedge into transatlantic relations? Will intensifying China-Europe relations result in closer Sino-European ties, damaged U.S. strategic interests, and diminished transatlantic relations? What needs to happen in the United States, in Europe, and in transatlantic relations to avoid or alleviate a strategic rift over China? Do the United States and Europe share more common interests and values vis-à-vis China than differences? How can the United States and Europe achieve complementarity and bring their respective strengths to bear in their approaches to China?

Given these high stakes, potential challenges, and difficult questions, Washington needs to vastly improve its understanding of China-Europe relations on the one hand and broaden transatlantic common ground regarding China’s growing influence in the world on the other.

CONTENTS:

Foreword iv
Acknowledgments vi
Executive Summary vii
1. China-Europe Relations: What Is at Stake for the United States? 1
2. Developments in Contemporary China-Europe Relations 4
3. Assessing China-Europe Relations: Implications for the United States 30
4. Recommendations: Building a Comprehensive, Constructive 35
Framework for Transatlantic Relations vis-à-vis China
Appendix: Transfers of Major Conventional Weapons 42
About the Authors 47

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A Report of the CSIS Freeman Chair in China Studies

Authors: Bates Gill, Melissa Murphy
Foreword: Charles W. Freeman III
May 2008

ABOUT THE AUTHORS:

Bates Gill is director of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) in Sweden. Prior to his appointment at SIPRI, he held the Freeman Chair in China Studies at CSIS in Washington, D.C. He has previously held positions at the Brookings Institution, where he was the inaugural director of the Center for Northeast Asian Policy Studies, and at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies of the Monterey Institute of International Studies. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the International Institute for Strategic Studies and has consulted for a number of multinational corporations and government agencies.

From 1993 to 1997, he initiated and led the East Asia Arms Control and Security Project at SIPRI. Dr. Gill has a long record of research and publication on international and regional security issues, particularly regarding arms control, nonproliferation, strategic nuclear relations, peacekeeping, and military-technical development.

In recent years, this research has broadened to encompass other security-related trends in the post–Cold War world, including multilateral security organizations and the impact of domestic politics and development on the foreign and security policies of states. He is the author of Rising Star: China’s New Security Diplomacy (Brookings, 2007) and a coauthor of China: The Balance Sheet (PublicAffairs, 2006). Dr. Gill received his Ph.D. from the Woodrow Wilson Department of Government and Foreign Affairs at the University of Virginia. He has lived more than two years in China and Taiwan and more than five years in Europe (in France, Sweden, and Switzerland), and he has carried out research-related travel in more than 40 countries. Dr. Gill speaks, reads, and writes Chinese, English, and French.

Melissa Murphy is a research associate with the CSIS Freeman Chair in China Studies, where she works on issues related to China’s domestic political and socioeconomic developments. Prior to joining CSIS, she was a China specialist with the international law firm Dewey Ballantine, focusing on U.S.-China economic and trade relations. Before attending graduate school, Ms. Murphy spent seven years working in Hong Kong and Okinawa for the Foreign Broadcast Information Service, where she monitored developments in Asia for U.S. government officials. She is the author of Decoding Chinese Politics: Intellectual Debates and Why They Matter (CSIS, 2008). Ms. Murphy is from the United Kingdom and received an M.A. and B.A. with honors in history and political science from Cambridge University. She graduated from Harvard University with an M.A. in East Asian studies, concentrating on China’s political and economic transformation.

About CSIS:

In an era of ever-changing global opportunities and challenges, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) provides strategic insights and practical policy solutions to decisionmakers.

CSIS conducts research and analysis and develops policy initiatives that look into the future and anticipate change.

Founded by David M. Abshire and Admiral Arleigh Burke at the height of the Cold War, CSIS was dedicated to the simple but urgent goal of finding ways for America to survive as a nation and prosper as a people. Since 1962, CSIS has grown to become one of the world’s preeminent public policy institutions.

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Former U.S. senator Sam Nunn became chairman of the CSIS Board of Trustees in 1999, and John J. Hamre has led CSIS as its president and chief executive officer since 2000. CSIS does not take specific policy positions; accordingly, all views expressed in this publication should be understood to be solely those of the author(s).

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