COURTESY OF KERRY BROWN

Since 2003, the European Union (EU) and China have described their relationship as one of "strategic partnership." But the term is one that puzzles many on both sides. And as one expert said at a forum of EU and Chinese think tanks held in November in Beijing before the formal EU-China summit in Nanjing at the end of the month, "With the EU and China, there is always one other major partner at the table, whatever they talk about—and that is the United States." Are all three "strategic partners?" Can they all work within the same framework together, for common, shared aims? Are there areas in which two of the three are closer to each other, and have an advantage? Are there times, as the English saying goes, when "two really is company and three is a crowd?"

PARTNERS: Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao meets in Beijing on November 20 with European delegates, including former French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin, former Hungarian Prime Minister Medgyessy Peter and former British Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott, who were in China for the Forum on China-European Union Strategic Partnership (LIU JIANSHENG)

The Nanjing summit, held on November 30, took place at an important moment in the EU's development. The Lisbon Treaty is now accepted and implemented. It has been a bruising process getting the whole thing through. Bold plans a few years back for a European Constitution and a uniform EU foreign policy had to be scaled down. There was brittle opposition in many member states to the whole project from the very start. Only one country of the 27 member states actually allowed a full vote for Lisbon Treaty proposals when they were finally set down—Ireland. The first election was lost. Only the second one managed to get public support—and that was as a result of the impact of the economic crisis and the appreciation in Ireland that without the EU the situation would have been even worse.

China's leaders have made it clear they value the EU, and that they want things to work better than they have in recent years. The arrival of the Lisbon Treaty, and of an "EU president" and a high representative for foreign affairs, at least gives a focal point. But bolder expectations about a unified, connected political and trade entity will no doubt need to be scaled down. While China and the United States remain sovereign states, the EU remains 27 member states, with separate foreign and defense policies, and a great deal of internal opposition to more pooling of sovereignty.

During this economic crisis, the EU, China and the United States have been able to identify a lot of common ground. Seven of the attendees at the G20 conference held in London in April were from the EU. There was an appreciation that the EU remains the world's largest trading and economic entity. Its approach to the credit crisis and the banking collapse was crucial. The main three countries in the EU—Germany, France and Britain—showed leadership in intervening to help banks that were close to collapse. A faltering Europe would have been devastating for the rest of the world economy.

But as a political player, the EU continues to frustrate both China and the United States. Henry Kissinger once caustically remarked when someone told him to take the EU into account when dealing with a crisis, "Sure, can someone give me the phone number of the EU?" Now, with the Lisbon Treaty, there should at least be a uniform secretariat, and figures whom both sides can talk directly to. The only question is whether the appointment of Belgian Prime Minister Herman Van Rompuy as president and EU Trade Commissioner Catherine Ashton as high representative for foreign affairs are not far too low key for these weighty positions. Will the world really take these figures seriously and open their doors to them? Most crucially, will these appointments carry weight in Beijing and Washington? If not, then they have failed.

The convening of the EU-China summit so soon after the first visit of U.S. President Barack Obama to China means observers can stand back and discern the status of the China-U.S.-EU relationship. President Obama, in his formal statements while in China, and in the joint statement issued by both sides at the end of his visit, made it clear that in facing economic, environmental and geopolitical issues, the United States and China need to work together. Unilateral solutions won't work. Sometimes, Obama comes close to suggesting there is now a unique global relationship between China and the United States, which stands over any other in the world at the moment. This has been characterized as the "G2." But every statement by Chinese leaders on this so far has made it clear China resists, and is uncomfortable with this notion. Suddenly, therefore, the EU becomes an important counterbalance. It takes its place in a multipolar world, simply because of the size of its markets and the importance of its economies. As one Chinese official said in Beijing in late November, the world needs the EU, and it needs an EU that can be cohesive and speak with a common voice as a counterbalance to the United States. The problem is whether the EU can live up to this expectation.

China and the EU have $400 billion of trade between them. This is the largest amount between any two entities. Such massive trade flows raise expectations to the amount of common interests between both sides. But no one could pretend the last four years have been easy ones in the relations between both sides. Failure by the EU to lift the arms embargo in 2005 after pressure from the United States led to disappointment in Beijing. Opposition by the EU to granting China market economy status despite doing so for Russia in 2002 added bewilderment. The meetings between Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and President Nicolas Sarkozy of France in 2007 and 2008 respectively with the Dalai Lama only topped off a rocky period between both sides.

The Nanjing meeting, despite the hard talk about currency devaluation, marks a new beginning. China has looked hard at how the EU works, and lost some of its illusions, which is not a bad thing. It has also researched extensively how the EU views issues, and has become much more knowledgeable about the complex dynamics of the different member states as they work in the EU. The EU, for its part, has started to lose some of its arrogance and complacency. In a survey undertaken in Germany in October, clear evidence was presented of how passive and self-satisfied the EU sometimes can be in regard to its own position: "We are the best," the conclusions of this survey seemed to say, "and the world needs to come to us." Chinese views were much more dynamic, always looking toward a better and brighter future, and willing to engage and learn from others. The EU now realizes it needs to rest far less on its laurels and recapture some of the dynamism it has lost.

One critical issue facing all three partners—the EU, China and the United States—is decoupling trade from political disagreements. Here the United States and China have led the way. In the 1980s and 1990s, there were annual arguments each year in the United States about granting China "most favored nation" trading status. Congress and Senate in Washington, before agreeing to this, always undertook grueling enquiries, which created bad blood with China, despite the fact every time the status was still granted. Whether these confrontations ever helped much is open to debate. With China's entry into the World Trade Organization in 2001, these annual tussles no longer happened. The consensus now is trade is trade, and political differences are dealt with away from this area. The EU needs to have a similar relationship with China. Too often, trade and politics get mixed up. This is often to the detriment of both sides. Political differences will continue to exist, but mixing them up with trade relations overcomplicates things. After Nanjing, hopefully the relationship between the EU and China and the United States and China will be on a similar footing in this respect.

While China and the EU are now talking much more harmoniously with each other, no one in the EU would ever kid themselves they would have anything like the traction the United States does in China. Nor would they want to compete with this position at all. Like China, the United States frequently finds dealing with the EU frustrating, even though it sees its value as a massive project of integration in an area that has historically known too much conflict and competition. There is certainly space for the EU, China and the United States now to sit down far more as a trilateral entity, and discuss areas of common interest together, rather than all pursuing separate dialogues. One of the interesting results of the Lisbon Treaty would be that this sort of trilateral dialogue should now become more feasible. In addition, whatever is agreed at Copenhagen, and whatever is discussed about the global economy, will from now on need agreement between the three partners to be effective. In that sense we are truly living in a multipolar world, even if one of the poles has a further 27 heads.

The author is a senior fellow at the Royal Institute of International Affairs in Britain

(The viewpoints in this article do not necessarily represent those of Beijing Review)