Links about China and EU-China relations that caught my eye this week
1) Beyond the €1 Billion a Day: my colleague Jiaxin Li does a deep dive into the background of the Šefčovič deal and the wider EU-China dynamics.
https://apcoworldwide.com/blog/beyond-the-e1-billion-a-day/
2) How Maroš Šefčovič talked his way to a China trade breakthrough – POLITICO’s blow by blow account of the diplomatic legwork that got us here, including of course the internal EU story.
https://www.politico.eu/article/how-maros-sefcovic-talked-his-way-to-a-china-trade-breakthrough/
3) Arnold Toynbee’s Chinese Century: A Foreign Policy piece by Shiv Parihar, looking at why Toynbee’s A Study of History was popular in the West in the mid-20th century and why it is popular in China now.
4) The Economist tells us that Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre is now compulsory reading in Chinese schools, and speculates about why:
https://www.economist.com/china/2026/10/08/china-wants-teenagers-to-read-a-classic-english-novel
5) It is exactly three years this week since my own first visit to China, for Chengdu Worldcon and also Beijing.