On 9 April the
21st EU-China summit took place in Brussels. On the agenda was a potpourri of topics including trade and investment relations, sustainable development, global governance, the future of multilateralism, cybersecurity, foreign
security and human rights. Many of these issues were not exactly easy to address between the two partners, but the discussion was necessary in tackling pressing issues and finding ways forward for cooperation in an increasingly difficult geopolitical setting.
In the margins of the summit, a number of other high-level meetings took place, including the
4th Innovation Cooperation Dialogue, co-chaired by EU Research Commissioner Carlos Moedas and Wang Zhigang, Chinese Minister of Science and Technology. The EU and China plan to develop a joint roadmap to enrich
and balance cooperation in research and innovation, while
the Dialogue also focussed on framework conditions for cooperation, including mutual openness of the respective research and innovation programmes – the latter could spice-up the EU internal negotiations on its future
programmes and the sensitive issue of conditions for third country participation.
Why this is important:
China is indisputably becoming one of the world’s major scientific power houses and many European researchers are thus interested in collaborating with Chinese
peers. However, collaboration is challenging between competitors, especially when they do not always share the same values. This is relevant notably in areas such as artificial intelligence and cybersecurity, which pose new ethical questions and are sensitive
for national security. Concerns that the Chinese government uses such technology for surveyance of people are just one example. While collaboration in research and innovation is very important, the political debate in Europe seems to shift more towards securing
Europe’s industrial autonomy.
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