Economic relations between The EU and China in an unusual time

Official URL: https://risc01.sabanciuniv.edu/record=b2486561_(Table of contents)

The European Union – China economic relations which was started in 1975, is a highly institutionalised, and multi-layered but to a certain extent complicated, partnership. Ever since China’s integration of the global economy began, the EU was one of the leading actors behind this integration. The EU had promoted China’s liberalising market reforms. Thus, in the process of China’s economic growth, China’s economic relations with the EU has played an important role. In today, economic relations between the EU and China represent one of the largest relations in the global economy in terms of both the quantity and number of sectors. However, in the last decades, both sides have reconsidered their economic partnership, after a period of growing closer ties and increasing interdependency. Despite the growing linkage and increasing number of financial interactions, disputes in several fields in economic relations have increased tensions between the EU and China. China has become more confident to follow its own economic model and therefore, shared interest of these economic relations between the EU and China has blurred. This thesis provides an analysis of certain aspects and challenges of the EU – China economic relations by focusing on how relations have undergone alteration over time, which major problems damage the economic partnership and how international dynamics influence these relations