The EU and China have, historically, had a complex relationship. This was encapsulated in the European Commission’s 2019 EU-China strategic outlook, which referred to China as both a “strategic partner”, but also an “economic competitor” and “systemic rival promoting alternative models of governance”.
Since the outlook’s publication, tensions have only increased between the two powers. More recently, disagreements over China’s responsibility for the origin of the COVID pandemic and China’s position on the war in Ukraine have contributed significantly to the worsening of the relationship.
