The great Beijing-Brussels disconnect
By Axel Berkofsky
Europe doesn't like rocking the boat. Especially with Beijing sitting in the
bow and requesting Brussels not meddle with its "internal affairs", such as
human rights, Tibet and Taiwan. Instead, China would rather that Europe just
provide it with what it wants: money and high-tech know-how to keep its economy
growing at double-digit growth rates.
Like it or not (and European Union bureaucrats in charge of drafting Brussels'
China policy statements and papers don't), a growing list of bilateral
problems, as opposed to nice-sounding political rhetoric referring to each
other as "strategic partners", has moved to the very top of the EU-China
bilateral agenda.
Europe's trade deficit with China is growing at the rate of 15
million euro (US$23.5 million) per hour. And Beijing's refusal to enforce
intellectual property rights or remove market access obstacles for European
businesses is what Brussels wants to alleviate as soon as possible.
Business over principle, as usual
Beijing won't do this, of course. And add human rights, Tibet, Taiwan and
freedoms of the press, speech and religion in China and you'll get an idea how
much is on the EU Commission's (executive branch's)plate in terms of
implementing China policies on behalf of 27 member states. Unfortunately, the
commission's mandate and, more importantly, its authority are very limited.
This leads, more often than not, to toothless agreements embedded in
uninspiring policy papers.
Worse, from the commission's perspective, member states' policies towards China
are anything but coherent and often change depending on who wants what and when
from Beijing.
For example, there would either be no support or strong opposition from a
country like France for the commission becoming more outspoken on human rights
in China should this coincide with an Airbus deal to sell airplanes to China.
In fact, on his trip to China last November, French President Nicolas Sarkozy
"uninvited" his minister for human rights, Rama Yade, at short notice to make
sure that human rights in China would not stand in the way of Airbus signing a
deal to open a factory in China. They didn't; France and China signed that and
other deals worth 10 billion euro (US$15 billion). This may have only been
possible because Yade didn't board the plane to Beijing with her boss.
Shutting up less, sometimes
To be fair, the EU's criticism on human rights in China in general and Tibet in
particular has recently turned from cautious and wishy-washy to - by Brussels'
standards - outspoken and straightforward.
On June 12, the EU Commission upgraded its previously overly tame criticism on
Beijing's Tibet policies and posted a strongly worded statement on Tibet in
reply to a number of petitions received by non-governmental organizations,
exile Tibetans and others urging the commission to express a position on the
human-rights situation in Tibet that went beyond being "worried".
"The commission remains seriously concerned about the continuing human-rights
violations in Tibet, the allegations of torture and abusive treatment of
Tibetans in prison, raids in monasteries and deportations of monks, unfair
trials for the Tibetans involved in the unrest and reinforced 'Patriotic
Education Campaign' directed against the Dalai Lama," the statement reads.
Being "worried and concerned" on the record, however, is not the same as
actually putting real political pressure on Beijing. Such an option is not
currently on the commission's China policy agenda.
Saying it in Chinese
But studying Chinese, as turns out, is on the EU's agenda and the commission is
planning to equip its bureaucrats and diplomats with skills to speak about, and
hear lectures on, Tibet, Taiwan and human rights in Chinese. It set up an
in-house Chinese language training program which reportedly more than 100
officials have already signed on to.
However, the great majority of the 100 officials working on China in the
commission do not speak any Chinese. It should be said that a working-level
command of Chinese as opposed to ordering a beer in a Beijing hotel bar is a
matter of years.
Taking years is too long in an institution in which bureaucrats rotate every
three to four years. For example, a bureaucrat who has worked on relations with
Japan or China for four years might find himself or herself working on Europe's
relations with Greenland the next four years - starting from zero as far as
knowledge on the country is concerned.
The commission's rotation system takes into account nationality, gender and
other criteria to make sure that not necessarily the most qualified candidate
out of the 25,000-member commission staff gets the job in question.
Inevitably, this system produces bureaucrats who spend six months to one year
familiarizing themselves with the country or EU policy area they are assigned
to before making any sense of the job.
Show us the money
In recent years, the commission's China desk has repeatedly announced it will
invest money and resources into contemporary Chinese studies in Europe. That
sounded good, but Brussels has yet to provide European universities and
think-tanks with funds to produce work and research on contemporary China
relevant to academia or policymakers.
The commission does not finance a single contemporary China studies program at
a European university or think-tank and instead focuses on handing out the
occasional grant to research consortia in Europe and China to work on narrowly
defined China-related topics for limited periods of time.
Ironically (as opposed to "humorously" for those who have done it), filling in
the commission's grant application forms can be as time-consuming as the
research itself. Consequently, many European think-tanks and universities have
turned to private sponsors.
Worse, due to its complex bureaucratic and administrative procedures and rules,
Brussels has become infamous for paying very late and employing consultancies
to administer grants on its behalf instead of dealing with the recipients
directly.
This is also a case of throwing European taxpayers' money down the drain
because the consultancies' input typically has very little do with
"consultancy" and more to do with taking care of basic logistics and the
pocketing of excessive overhead funding provided by the EU Commission.
The commission remains above all interested in seeing an "event". For example,
a public seminar or roundtable at the end of an EU-sponsored project scores
points for visibility as opposed to substance. More often than not, there is no
follow-up whatsoever. Ignoring the policy advice and recommendations they've
paid researchers for remains a commission specialty.
The recently re-activated commission-sponsored European China Academic Network
is a positive initiative although its activities are limited to organizing an
occasional conference or workshop as opposed to in-depth research on China.
Upgrading the partnership, maybe
As far as Brussels is concerned, the good news is the EU-China Partnership and
Cooperation Agreement (PCA). However, apart from reading on the official record
that the PCA will take EU-China ties to a vaguely defined "next level", there
is scant information available on how exactly bilateral relations will change
in quality and quantity with the new PCA.
Today, Brussels and Beijing are cooperating actively in almost all imaginable
policy areas through the 25 so-called "sectoral dialogues". Most Brussels
policy observers agree that the PCA is likely to be an update of the 1985
EU-China cooperation agreement as opposed to the next "big bang" of EU-China
relations.
Either way, the EU is keen to sign the agreement sooner rather than later.
After all, signing nice-sounding agreements with the rest of the world is what
it does best, at least judging by the number of bilateral "action plans" and
joint "policy papers" coming out of Brussels on a very regular basis.
Beijing, on the other hand, is in less of a rush to sign the PCA, in view of
the EU's increasing "fuss about human rights and the trade deficit", as a
Chinese scholar put it to Asia Times Online.
If it turns out the commission and its counterparts in Beijing do not have
additional aces up their sleeves in regard to the upgrade of Brussels-Beijing
ties, signing the elusive PCA is at least another photo opportunity for
policymakers and bureaucrats to reinforce their on-paper status as the best of
friends.
Dr Axel Berkofsky is adjunct professor at the University of Milan and
advisor on Asian affairs at the Brussels-based European Policy Center (EPC).
The views expressed here are the author's alone.
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