Sino-European relationship dashed on shoals of conceptual gaps

Source:Global Times Published: 2013-11-15 0:28:01

Since the mid-1990s, the relationship between China and Europe has been damaged by recurring issues from Tibet to human rights, from China's market economy status to the arms embargo, from Africa to Iran. In 2008, the China-EU relations went into a historical slump.

To find the root causes of these problems, several scholars from both China and the Europe were invited to offer advice and suggestions in a seminar held in Fudan University based in Shanghai.

The essential parts of their speeches during the seminar were compiled by Pan Zhongqi, professor of International Relations at the School of International Relations and Public Affairs, Fudan University, together with his colleagues, into a book titled Conceptual Gaps and China-EU relations. The book was published by the Shanghai People's Publishing House in October.

"After a China-EU comprehensive strategic partnership was declared in 2003, numerous research projects and academic conferences have been devoted to this flowering but still difficult relationship," as the editor says. The reason for this phenomenon, the book holds, is that key problems standing in the way of the deepening of the bilateral relationship are not derived from lack of sincerity or effort, but from conceptual gaps between both sides.

While we have been busy discussing the varied fields of distrust and conflicts on a practical level, we have allowed a far more fundamental problem, conceptual gaps, to rest at the core of these conflicts.

Eight political concepts, sovereignty, soft power, human rights, democracy, stability, strategic partnership, multilateralism and global governance, are examined from the perspectives of both China and Europe, finding that almost all these basic concepts are understood to have different connotations.

Such findings admit the dynamic nature of the concepts, which can be helpful in explaining the reoccurrence of the problems.

For example, due to difference in understanding the concept "strategic partnership," China believes that Europe should unblock the arms embargo to China as the two sides are already "strategic partners" to each other, while Europe expects to urge China to promote its political reform through this relationship. That's why the strategic partnership between China and Europe just stays in words without contributing significantly to the improvement of bilateral relations.

The book also analyzes the negative impact brought by the conceptual gaps in bilateral relations, which may exacerbate policy conflicts, bring about uncertainties, lead to misplaced expectations and make China-EU dialogues inefficient.

After recognizing the harmfulness of the gaps, the next question is how China and the EU should manage them.

Conceptual gaps are undoubtedly important. But the countermeasures suggested by scholars for this problem are a relatively weak part of the book.

Many principles and methods, including enhancing mutual respect, mutual trust and mutual accommodation, have been raised in the book. However, regrettably, most of them lack concrete ways of being put into practice.

As the book says, "conceptual gaps […] largely derive from their differences in culture, values and 'actorness,' among others." These areas are all deep-rooted and entrenched.

The book enables us to realize the existence of conceptual gaps at the theoretical level, but still, political wisdom and further efforts are required to apply it in reality.

Posted in: Fresh off the Shelf, Viewpoint

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