China and EU have potential to help stabilize global economy

陈小将

European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell reiterated on Monday the EU's multifaceted approach toward China as a cooperation partner, an economic competitor and a systemic rival, but also stressed that the competition between the two sides is getting tougher.
Without naming China, he said the EU should avoid turning dependency on any economy into vulnerability like what the EU has allowed its dependency on Russian for gas to become. He also said the debate on China will continue and the Council of the European Union has taken into account the message sent by Xi Jinping in his speech at the opening session of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China on Sunday.
If that is the case, the message EU officials received from Xi's speech contained a lot of encouraging elements. In the section on promoting world peace and development, Xi reaffirmed that China will continue to deepen reform and widen high-level opening-up, and emphasized that China is committed to promoting a new type of international relations, and deepening and expanding global partnerships based on equality, openness and cooperation.
Xi also said that China will continue to pursue an independent foreign policy of peace and it respects the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries.
At this critical juncture in history, China and the EU can and should play a vital role in safeguarding global peace and development, upholding multilateralism, and opposing Cold War mentality that seeks to divide the world into rival ideological blocs.
The rapid development of China-EU relations over the past 47 years of diplomatic relations shows that despite their differences, the two major global economies have much more in common and could cooperate on a wide range of issues and in many fields to the benefit of not only themselves but also the rest of the world.
This is evident in their trade relations. China was the EU's largest trading partner in goods — their trade volume being