Links about China and China-EU relations that caught my eye this week
1) There’s only one story in town today, and it hasn’t finished yet: Maroš Šefčovič is in Beijing for two days of talks to try and avert the looming EU-China trade conflict.
Rather than any of the pieces on Šefčovič in Beijing, here are two short papers from ECFR.
Tobias Gehrke looks at Europe’s strategic choice:
And Andrew Small has tactical suggestions for what the EU can actually do:
https://ecfr.eu/publication/the-art-of-the-swarm-systemic-rivalry-with-china-on-european-terms/
2) Taking the longer view, over in Foreign Policy, a long piece by Carl Minzner describes “China’s Long Twilight: Demographic Decline, Political Paralysis, and the Fate of Great Powers”. Am not completely convinced myself, but it is well argued.
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/china/chinas-long-twilight-carl-minzner
3) Looking at today’s geopolitics, Rana Foroohar has an FT piece about the current megatrends: “China, America and the new great game”
https://www.ft.com/content/8869caf9-3cd1-4300-aeb3-828a4d9da4f9
Kevin Rudd chimes in:
https://mrkrudd.substack.com/p/the-china-us-rapprochement
4) Sorry to go back to the FT again, but this piece about the construction of data centres in Inner Mongolia is a lot more interesting than that description makes it sound:
https://www.ft.com/content/e1dd8bff-b06d-4a40-bbb7-c0a6a36f1c8e
5) To end on a cultural note, in the Guardian Xiaolu Guo takes her daughter to China to explore the legacy of the Tang dynasty (and others).
More next week.
(I hear that Šefčovič will be briefing EU ambassadors almost as soon as he lands on Sunday.)