China looks for European partners

The recent visits of German Chancellor Angela Merkel to China and of Chinese President Xi Jinping to Britain clearly marked a new era in Sino-EU relations. As many as 13 deals were finalised during Merkel's visit which was her eighth to China since 2005 as the German chancellor. And during Jinping's visit to Britain, dubbed "super state visit", deals worth $61.5 billion were signed.
Analysts say, as with many of diplomatic initiatives, the primary focus of Merkel's visit was economic. However, there appears to be more to China-Germany relations than trade. For example, the European Council on Foreign Relations noted in 2012 that a new 'special relationship' had begun to emerge "between China and Germany as China bet that Berlin would continue to become more influential within the EU….Beijing hopes that Germany's sway in the EU will reap dividends for China-EU relations down the road."    
That said Merkel's frequent visits to China - eight times in ten years - clearly indicate that the exercise to develop closer Berlin-Beijing relationship has become a two-way traffic.  Top Chinese leaders reciprocate such gestures.
While in Beijing, Angela Merkel met Chinese President Xi Jinping and both talked about matters concerning "pragmatic cooperation and bilateral strategic partnership." Xi was quoted by Chinese and Western media as saying "Sino-German relations are significant" because partnership between Germany and China should extend to central Europe, Eurasia and the rest of the world.
During her talks with Premier Li Keqiang, Chinese news agency Xinhua said, both Chancellor Merkel and the Premier Li expressed hope for increased cooperation in trade, finance and cultural exchanges. Likewise, President Xi also proposed China and Germany increase their cooperation on improving the current international system. Buy-in from the EU will go a long way towards helping make China's vision of multi-polar world a reality, he added.
Xi's view of a multi-polar world is, indeed, an interesting development. Emergence of certain strains in Berlin's relationship with Washington may have made it look easier for China in the wake of new allegations that the US sponsored a double agent in Germany. Britain's major daily newspaper The Guardian reported that Merkel even fielded questions about this topic at the joint press conference with Li, calling the allegations (if true) "a clear contradiction as to what I consider to be trusting cooperation between agencies and partners."         
Meanwhile, reporting on the latest situation on legal status of a global pact to be agreed in Paris conference due in December to stave of dangerous climate damage, French news agency SFP has reported from Paris that France and the US appeared to have clashed on the issue. French President Francois Hollande while attending a European Union - Africa summit in Malta - said: "If there is not a binding accord (at the Paris meeting), there will not be an accord."
Hollande was commenting on a statement made by US Secretary of State John Kerry asserting that the US would not sign a deal in which countries were legally obliged to cut greenhouse gas emissions. Kerry told the Financial Times of London that the Paris agreement was "definitely not going to be a treaty …. They are not going to be legally binding reduction targets like Kyoto or something."
The 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which Washington had signed in 1998 but never ratified, committed rich nations to limiting emissions, backed by tough compliance provisions. While the final outcome would be decided in the ensuing Paris meeting in December, such indications would obviously encourage China to try and further consolidate its ties with the European Union through Germany, France and Britain.
According to European analyst Shannon Tiezzi, such differences may further fray their tempers but it is unlikely to improve EU's relations with China. In a commentary in The Diplomat, Tiezzi thought that there is a long way to go before China and Germany's cooperation on security issues matches their dynamic economic relationship. Human rights continue to be a touchy subject, and Merkel told reporters that she planned to discuss the issue in her meetings with the Chinese leaders. Besides, Merkel also expressed her concern over cyber-espionage directed at German intellectual properties but Chinese Premier Li Keqiang quickly pointed out that China and Germany are "both victims of hacking attacks", referring to Snowden leaks revealing NSA espionage against both Beijing and Berlin.               
After her meetings in Beijing during her latest China visit, Merkel flew into Hefei, capital of East China's Anhui Province for a day accompanied by her host Premier Li Keqiang, an Anhui native. While there, she visited a family, a local village school and attended a seminar with business leaders from both the countries.  
During her past seven visits, Merkel had visited six different cities outside the capital, including economic hubs of Shanghai and Nanjing in the eastern coastal region, Xi'an and Chengdu in the relatively underdeveloped west, Guangzhou in the flourishing south and northern harbour of Tianjin. According to German Ambassador in China, Michael Clauss, Merkel keeps "a very close friendship" with Chinese leaders including Li. When Li took over his office in March 2013, Merkel was the first foreign leader to call and congratulate him.
Meanwhile, Chinese President Xi Jinping's five-day successful visit to Britain was widely acclaimed as one that ushered in a "golden decade" for the two countries.
A veteran British China watcher, Keith Bennett commented: "As has been shown in the results of President Xi Jinping's state visit to the United Kingdom, the relations between China and the UK have the potential to become a model for relations between a major developed country and a major developing country; between permanent member states of the UN Security Council, and between countries with different social systems."
Bennett is the deputy chairman of the 48 Group Club, an independent business network, committed to promoting relations between Britain and China. Chinese news agency Xinhua quoted him as saying: "Such an achievement has been hard won and must be carefully nurtured and safeguarded." He said Xi's state visit had also struck a chord among the British public as a whole.     
"Not only is the degree of attention from our country's political leaders unprecedented, but so is the level of press and media attention and public interest", he said and added that strategic issues and huge business deals ($61.5 billion, including a much-talked-about project that would see China hold a one-third stake in Britain's first new nuclear plant in a generation) may have been at the core of the visit, but it was also strong on the social front.
A British diplomat-turned-academic, Tim Summers said Britain, by announcing its intention to join the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), had demonstrated that "China has already become a significant economic power and that Beijing's approach to international economic governance matters and requires a positive and flexible response from other countries."
Also a senior consulting fellow with the Asia Program at British think-tank Chatham House, Summers said he agreed that the development programmes of both the British and Chinese governments created opportunities for commercial collaboration, in China and UK and in third markets.
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