On 28 September 2021, the Institute for Foreign Affairs and Trade (IFAT) and the China-CEE Institute held an online roundtable discussion on the Prospects for EU-China Investment from both Chinese and European perspectives. Márton Ugrósdy, director of IFAT and Zhongping Feng, director of the Institute of European Studies at Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) held welcome speeches as the beginning of the seminar. Fan Cui, professor at School of International Trade and Economics of the University of International Business and Economics, Marcin Przychodniak, analyst of Polish Institute of International Affair, Bin Sheng, professor at Nankai University, School of Economics, Margot Schüller, senior research fellow at German Istitute for Global and Area Studies (GIGA), Institute for Asian Studies participated as panelists at the first discussion. The discussion was moderated by Péter Goreczky, senior analyst of IFAT. Presenters of the second part of the event were Marco Ricceri, secretary general of Institute for Political, Economic and Social Studies (Eurispes), Zuokui Liu, deputy director of Institute of European Studies at CASS, Viktor Eszterhai, senior research fellow at IFAT and Bin Ye, director of Department of EU Law Institute of European Studies at CASS. The second discussion was moderated by Qiangfei Qi, project manager at China-CEE Institute.
Cui Fan emphasized the importance of both competitive neutrality and ownership neutrality in regard to the world trade and investment system. He said that these two principles should be followed without overemphasizing any of them. Public ownership should be respected too, which means instead of changing the Chinese economic regime, international economic behavior should be adjusted. Marcin Przychodniak outlined that the prospects for the practical implementation of the CAI are poor. In his view, the main obstacle to ratification of the convention is political tension between China and the EU. Member States cannot act independently of the international political situation.
Bin Sheng introduced the second generation of bilateral investment treaties of China and the new Chinese Foreign Investment Law. The new legislation has already helped China to open its markets and further reforms are likely to follow it aiming the liberalization of investments. Margot Schüller underlined that the CAI offers new opportunities for both Europe and China: European companies can have better access to the market, in return Chinese transaction costs can be reduced if China deals with only a single EU—China agreement. Removing trade barriers would not only be economically advantageous for both parties but could also help trust-building between them.
Marco Ricceri analyzed the contradictory period we are currently living in. He emphasized the importance of soft cooperation, institutional approach, and the common platform of sustainable development. He took G20 cooperation and multilateral development banks as examples to follow. Liu Zuokui highlighted the CAI must be viewed from a trilateral perspective because transatlantic cooperation between the EU and the US has an impact on the agreement. As China-US and EU-US bilateral trade agreements have stalled, it is in the interest of European countries to seize the opportunity for China to enter the market as soon as possible.
Viktor Eszterhai informed participants about the economic and political aspects of the CAI from Hungarian perspective. Hungary is a dependent market, integrated into the German Central Eastern European Manufacturing Core, due to which the CAI has a complex impact on Hungary’s economic opportunities. The greatest value of the CAI from the Hungarian point of view is that it helps to keep European-Chinese relations in a normal channel, which is negatively affected by many external factors. Bin Ye said that CAI could not only make European enterprises be the first to occupy the Chinese market but would also be a good start of a new cooperation between China and EU. Containing several commitments to remove trade barriers, CAI would help China deepen its reforms and become even more integrated into the world market.
Participants agreed that the CAI is frozen due to political tensions between China and the EU. It was considered important to continue the dialogues started on the subject in order to better understand each other’s points of view. Participants stressed that it would be fortunate for the CAI to have less involvement in political issues in the process of economic cooperation, however it is difficult to avoid in the current situation.
The conference was closed by Xin Chen, Deputy Director of the CASS Institute for European Studies, summarizing the positions.
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