Spokesperson of the Chinese Mission to the EU
Mutual benefit and win-win cooperation are the strongest driving force for China-EU relations. Since the 1980s, China-EU practical cooperation and China’s reform and opening up have reinforced each other, helping China’s economy integrate into global industrial chains while also bringing growth and prosperity to the EU.
Today, China-EU relations are undergoing profound changes. Yet the prevailing trend of cooperation remains unchanged, as does the fundamental nature of mutual benefit and win-win cooperation. Together, they continue to drive the EU’s green and digital transitions and enhance its competitiveness.
First, China’s industrial chains support the EU’s green transition.
China is the only country in the world that possesses all industrial categories under the U.N.’s industrial classification system. It has developed complete industrial chains and strong large-scale manufacturing capabilities in sectors such as new energy vehicles, power batteries, photovoltaic modules, and energy storage equipment. These strengths have helped drive down the global cost of wind and solar power generation by more than 60% and 80% respectively over the past decade, significantly reducing the cost of the green transition. In recent years, China-EU green cooperation has gradually evolved from traditional trade exchanges toward industrial and investment collaboration, a trend that has been widely welcomed across European countries. The battery plant jointly established by CATL and Stellantis in Aragón, Spain, has officially broken ground, while the electric vehicle factory of BYD in Hungary is gradually coming into operation. These projects have created tens of thousands of local jobs, advanced the development of green industrial infrastructure, and offered a practical pathway for the EU to improve its own industrial chains.
Second, China serves as a “testbed” to empower the EU’s digital transition.
China and the EU each possess distinct strengths in the digital sector and thus enjoy broad prospects for cooperation. China’s innovation capabilities in digital technologies such as artificial intelligence continue to grow rapidly. China has launched more large AI models than any other country, holds around 60% of the world’s AI patents, and has over 600 million users of generative AI. All this has made China an ideal global “testbed” for investment, R&D and application of digital technologies. Meanwhile, the EU leads the world in basic research, design concepts and regulatory standards for digital technologies. By enhancing synergy and leveraging respective strengths, China and the EU can accelerate the commercialization and application of innovation outcomes. So far, cooperation between China and the EU in areas such as artificial intelligence and autonomous driving has already yielded fruitful results: Germany’s Volkswagen has partnered with China’s Horizon Robotics to deepen R&D in smart driving technologies, while cloud service providers such as Huawei Cloud and Alibaba Cloud have established data centers to provide cloud computing solutions across Europe. China stands ready to continue to play the role of a “testbed”, explore diverse forms of cooperation with the EU, and make a positive contribution to the EU’s digital transition.
Third, China acts as a “fitness club” to drive the EU’s R&D and innovation.
In the field of technological R&D and innovation, China has become an indispensable part of European companies’ global R&D networks. Joerg Wuttke, former president of the European Chamber of Commerce in China, noted that the Chinese market is critical for European carmakers in their transition from conventional fuel vehicles to new energy vehicles. Today, Mercedes-Benz is working with ByteDance to advance artificial intelligence applications; BMW is partnering with Alibaba Group and DeepSeek to accelerate the implementation of technologies; and Volkswagen’s new testing workshop in Hefei, since becoming operational, has helped shorten vehicle development cycles by 30% and reduce electric vehicle R&D costs by 50%. Martin Hofmann, Chairman of the Board of the German Chamber of Commerce in North China and Northeast China, observed that “mature partnerships with Chinese companies and a third wave of localization focused on R&D and rapid industrialization have become key for German companies to consolidate their position in the Chinese market and drive innovation at home and globally.”
China-EU economic and trade relations have never been a zero-sum game in which one side wins at the expense of the other. They are more like a pas de deux in which the two sides are deeply interconnected and mutually reinforcing. The two sides have enabled each other’s success and continue to need one another. Rather than speaking of so-called “trade imbalances” between China and the EU, it would be more accurate to say that there remains ample room to expand the pie of cooperation between the two sides. China welcomes Europe to board the “express train” of Chinese modernization, to build on the sound cooperation of the past 50 years and forge ahead, and to truly uphold mutual respect, the spirit of seeking common ground while shelving differences, openness and cooperation, and mutual benefit.
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