Page 9 - Azerbaijan State University of Economics

Fabio Massimo Parenti, Shi Chen: EU-China Relations in the Framework of the BRI a Critical
Analysis of EU Regulations on Trade and Investments

interpreted as one of the key f actors on EU’s decision against China’s MES (Hu,
2016).

Free trade and unilateral interpretation of figures
In relation to trade, the problem is that when it is termed “free”, it can create
problems of interpretation and falling into ideological consideration. Important to
remind that “free trade” was the main strategy through which UK managed its
imperial global reach, where the so called “free trade” was carried out in very
unbalanced conditions and not rarely imposed through force. The Opium wars
against China is quite exhaustive example (see John Stuart Mill and Tocqueville,
strong supporter of the war in the name of freedom – quoted in Losurdo 2018).
Trade has to be fair, respecting agent’s priorities and needs. It cannot be defined in
abstract and absolute way as “free”, neither allowing third countries to judge other
countries development priorities. As the president Xi Jinping remind during its
speech in Davos, there are different market economy modalities, according to geo-
historical condition of each country and the related development paths. In fact, over
80 country members of the WTO have already granted China with the market
economy status.

Another example to show the extent of misinterpretation on China-EU relations is the
following: on June, the European Commission president Junker stated, “while Chinese
investment into the European Union increased by 77% in 2016, the flow in the other
direction declined by almost a quarter. To put that into context, EU investment into
China last year was roughly 3% of what we invested into the United States […]. I
applaud the ambition of China's reform path. I recognize that reforms have been made
and that plans have been established. However, I would like to see implementation
speed up – so that your policies are in line with your world vision”. The use of the
figures presented does not consider a number of elements: 2016 was exceptional year,
coherent with the result of China’s reforms, while Europe is still the first source of
foreign investments to China. In addition, in 2015 the Chinese investment stock in
Europe was 35 billion, whilst the European investment stock in China was almost five
times higher… It is not reasonable to judge a rebalancing process, as is occurring in
China capital account since 2016, as negative for Europe (see Eurostat and OECD
databases).

2. EU TRADE DEFENSE INITIATIVES (TDI), NEW REGULATIONS AND
THEIR IMPLICATIONS
2.1. The state of affairs on the EU’s TDIs and China
According to Independent report for EP (February 2016), it is possible to identify
few main points about EU state of affair on trade defence initiatives:
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