How far is China from Europe

During the centuries, the Europeans were trying for getting to China. Nowadays, we can see practically the same picture. But unlike the Middle Ages, the Europe has strong rivals in the face of Russia and the USA. All of this political actors are trying to become a main trade partner of China, perhaps, the most favorable market in the world. The resources of China are great, and investments into them could provide also great profit in future. Also we should mention that China is developing country and if the European Union wants to get a strong cooperation with Beijing, it has to help China to become a “European” country.

But as we know, China is very far from Europe. How could the EU help to China to become a “part” of Europe? The XXI century is a century of technology and information and if the Europeans will build modern society in this Asian state, and if modern technologies of communication will play their role, perhaps, someday, we could say that China is “European” country. In this paper author will try to define how far is China from Europe. To achieve this goal we should investigate EU-China’s relationships and some variants of further cooperation.

Although it considers that these objectives remain valid in the long term, the Commission believes that the existing instruments should be improved and fine-tuned in order to take account of the developments since 1998 and to make EU policy more effective. This Communication therefore provides a comprehensive and forward-looking review by the Union of its objectives and of the dialogue and cooperation mechanisms in place for implementing EU policy towards China. It also suggests ways of developing EU-China relations by defining concrete and practical short and medium-term action points for EU policy.