Europe has a major political and economic stake in supporting China’s successful transition to a stable, prosperous and open country that fully embraces democracy, free market principles and the rule of law. The EU has much to offer here, stemming in part from its own experience in integrating accession countries from East and Central Europe.
Stock-taking is now required of our 2001 paper to take account of these developments and of new shared interests and challenges that lie ahead. It is also noteworthy that China will shortly be issuing its own strategic paper on relations with the EU, the first ever document of this kind.
This paper thus includes an assessment of what has been achieved, and proposals to update our approach which will help guide EU policy and action in the course of the next two to three years. On Governance, proposals are made to improve political dialogue through more clearly focussing existing mechanisms, which now cover regular sessions at six major levels, and to systematically address global and regional governance and security issues within these exchanges. The dialogue on illegal migration should be more results oriented and an agreement on the readmission of illegal migrants should be concluded soon.
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