Courcy’s Intelligence Brief

In our 28 March issue, we looked at a report from the EU-funded Europe-China Research and Advice Network (Ecran) on the economic opportunities presented by China’s 12th five-year programme (12FYP).  The report was particularly notable for the cynicism of its view that because China poses no military threat to the European Union, the EU can leave concerns about the ‘China threat’ to the US and that this is “something that promises to benefit the EU in its engagement with China”.  Another influential EU institution, the European Institute for Security Studies (EUISS), has just published a joint survey of EU and US foreign policy experts on the Asia-Pacific – Transatlantic strategies in the Asia-Pacific - which throws further light on this growing trans-Atlantic divide on Asia policy.

This latest EU expert report on relations with the Asia-Pacific lacks the cynicism of the Ecran report.  However, it cannot conceal the many divergencies with the US.  It seems to contradict Ecran when it argues that “it would be erroneous to believe that due to a lack of geographical proximity, Europe has no role to play in this area apart from purely an economic one”.  Nevertheless, in an echo of the Ecran injunction that the EU should avoid getting involved in controversial issues, it says: “The EU has a broad range of options to choose from and decide where it wants to get involved, in which way, and with whom.”  According to the EU experts, the issues on which the EU should mostly involve itself, apart from promoting its economic and trade interests, are the largely anodyne ones of promoting regional integration and global governance issues.

Further echoing the Ecran report’s priorities, the EUISS survey found that while 88% of European experts viewed trade and investment issues in the Asia-Pacific as of great importance to EU interests, only 14% considered territorial disputes to be so.  It is also important to note that although both the EU and the US attach great importance to trade and investment issues, this does not necessarily mean that they believe in cooperating on such issues.  On the contrary, a majority of European experts expressed the view that closer cooperation with China is more important that closer cooperation with the US.

The EUISS report does claim that its findings “demonstrate a substantial potential for cooperation between the US and the EU in the Asia Pacific”, with the transatlantic partners capitalising on “the different and complementary qualities that each of them brings to the table”.  It talks about a “division of labour”, with the US leading on transparency on China’s military build-up and mediation in nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation but with the EU, on the other hand, offering leadership in promoting human rights and engaging regional actors on global governance issues.

This does not sound like a particularly equal bargain, given the EU’s propensity to duck controversial issues such as Tibet (a propensity that can only be increased by the crisis in the Eurozone) and given that it would be the US that would be left to deal with the most confrontational issues concerning China’s rise such as its military build-up.  More realistic is the report’s warning that “both the EU and US need to be aware of a potential for friction, in particular in areas like the economy and trade”.