Representing the EU in China: European Bilateral Diplomacy in a Competitive Diplomatic Environment

Abstract

For decades, the European Community/Union has been criticised by politicians, scholars and the wider public for not speaking with ‘one voice’ in the world (Washington Post, 2012; Habermas, 2004, p. 18). Measures not only to integrate trade but also foreign policy were taken as early as the 1970s, yet under the geopolitical conditions of the Cold War, the time was not ripe and it was not particularly necessary or desirable to develop an independent European voice in world politics (Nugent, 2010, p. 378). This changed dramatically after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. A mere three years later, the European Union (EU) replaced the European Community, adding a separate Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP; Bonvicini and Regelsberger, 2007, p. 261). Despite modest progress in the CFSP and related high areas of policy, such as a common defence policy, criticism of the lack of a genuinely common foreign policy of the EU became louder, especially when the EU’s relations with rising powers, such as the People’s Republic of China (PRC) were at stake (Meunier, 2000; Schmitt, 2003; Kucharczyk, 2008; Chaffin, 2013). These rising powers changed contemporary global politics. From being dominated by the United States the world moved towards a multipolar system with several rival powers (Fox and Godement, 2009; Ricking, 2011; Torney 2012; China Economic Review, 2013; European Parliament, 2012). Nonetheless, despite the ongoing euro crisis and other issues questioning the widening and deepening of the Union, the EU maintained the aspiration to remain an actor able decisively to influence global politics (European Union, 2013; Ashton, 2013, p. 2; European Council, 2001).