Sound, stable ties needed to tackle global challenges

A student at the Hungarian-Chinese bilingual school in Budapest shows her painting of a giant panda on May 3. Besides economic cooperation, China and Europe have often worked closely on various multilateral issues throughout the history of China-EU relations, such as global climate change governance and World Trade Organization reforms, said Jin Ling, a senior research fellow on European studies at the China Institute of International Studies. "There is a strategic consensus among China and European countries in support of multilateralism in response to the challenges posed by Donald Trump's unilateralism," said Jin, adding that strengthening multilateral cooperation has been an element in nearly all joint declarations from China-EU summits for a long time. "The EU's current priority should not be asserting rule-setting in areas like trade remedies, investment screening and industrial policies, nor attempting to impose these through instruments such as duties, fines, lawsuits, or administrative intervention upon China," said Cui Hongjian, director of the Center for the European Union and Regional Development Studies at Beijing Foreign Studies University. "China and the EU, as two major forces driving multipolarity, two large markets supporting globalization, and two great civilizations advocating diversity, have no fundamental conflicts of interest," Cai wrote.