China’s think tanks have been given a critical role to play both on the national development strategy and on the country’s engagement with the rest of the world. A number of Chinese media outlets have as well stood out to establish think tank platforms, similar to the Intelligence Unit of The Economist magazine in the United Kingdom.

The prestigious China Daily founded in 1981 is one of them. It is a great honor to be a part, as a special advisor, of this process.

Earlier this year, the China Daily Group set up the China Watch Institute. By taking advantage of its core strength as a national flagship of international communication, the institute aims to be a top-notch conduit for timely, informed and thought-provoking research on China-related issues.

While China Daily was established following Deng Xiaoping’s “Reform and Opening-up”, or China’s opening-up 1.0, the China Watch Institute can be seen as a product of an opening-up 2.0, a process largely taking place under Xi Jinping’s presidency.

In a very short period of time, this newly-born platform has successfully leveraged its vast experience in sharing the China story with the world, especially to political influencers, opinion and business leaders by using a vast network of China watchers and thinkers across the globe.

Many influential personalities, such as the State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi, or the former president of the European Commission and prime minister of Italy Romano Prodi, have already contributed to the intellectual life of what is clearly a promising think tank.

The China Watch Institute also took the initiative to publish its first comprehensive policy report. Ahead of the 20th China-EU Summit on July 16 in Beijing, which is held against the backdrop of a rapidly changing global political and economic landscape, the China Watch Institute and the EU-China Research Centre of the College of Europe in Bruges, where President Xi Jinping delivered a speech in 2014, have partnered to invite scholars from China and the European Union to enrich the debate on the EU-China relations.

The two organizations are aware that China and the EU – committed as they are to multilateralism, free trade and global governance – meet at a time when the stakes are high. This year's summit will surely go beyond bilateral issues and delve into the future of global governance and the destiny of the Eurasian continent. These issues deserve wide public attention and open academic debates.

It is in this spirit that they have invited up to 20 writers, including Ambassador Zhang Ming, head of the Chinese Mission to the European Union, to write and put forward policy suggestions. These articles have been published on the website of the China Watch Institute, but also by China Daily and the other media platforms of the group, while the EU-China Research Centre makes them available through its network.

The analyses are also compiled into a EU-China policy report so it showcases the intellectual partnership between the China Watch Institute and the EU-China Research Centre of the College of Europe.

The EU-China relations are obviously an important component of global affairs, they have grown and evolved with the development of the two sides in the past decades, but they face today the challenge to navigate a new world. In 2016, following two major political earthquakes, we have entered indeed a new geopolitical configuration which is for both Brussels and Beijing a call to take more responsibilities.

While the choice made by the British people in favor of Brexit deeply affects the course of the European integration, the election of Donald Trump as the president of the United States of America profoundly modifies the dynamics around the Atlantic.

But Trump is also an American President who triggered in the second year of his mandate an unnecessary trade war across the Pacific adding more uncertainties to a world already highly volatile. To a certain extent, it is opening a crisis in a world of crises.

While the US president implements his geopolitical strategy of “America First” at any cost, the disconnection between the unilateralism it implies and the objective need of a better global governance for a world of unprecedented interconnectedness appears with ever greater clarity.

It is in this context that the European Union and China can opt to oppose American unilateralism with deepened Eurasian synergies. This is fundamentally what should be at the center of the 20th China-EU Summit in Beijing.

Brussels and Beijing have to defend multilateralism so economic growth can be better shared but also for immediate security reasons (the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or the Iran nuclear deal, is still alive despite the unwise US withdrawal) and, in the long term, for the interest of mankind since climate change is a threat for all.

If the EU finds in itself the resources to remain cohesive and politically ambitious, it can seize a double opportunity that the Chinese renaissance offers. It is around “The Belt and Road Initiative”, simply the largest international development project of our time, and the vision of “a community of destiny for mankind” that the EU and China can profoundly renew their partnership.

Co-architects of what can be called “New Silk Roads”, catalysts for “a community of destiny for mankind” the EU and China will give themselves the means to tackle immediate challenges through the Eurasian continent but also in Africa, and they will contribute to the organization of a world defined by unprecedented interdependence.

New forms of unilateralism, or neo-nationalisms, are the wrong answers to the excess of globalism. The EU and China can contribute to the reinvention of multilateralism so it is at the service of a concrete universalism which strikes the right balance between the interests of the parties and the common good.

The passage of Trump in the White House will be necessarily limited in time but the historical forces conducive to the growing awareness that mankind is linked by a common destiny will shape the many decades to come.

By working together, by choosing to solve the issues through dialogue and negotiation, by their readiness to compromise, the EU and China can demonstrate that they are on the right side of history.

David Gosset is the founder of the Europe-China Forum (2002) and of the New Silk Road Initiative (2015). He is a special advisor to the China Watch Institute. The author contributed this article to China Watch exclusively. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of China Watch.

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