Casting new mild on Sino-European kinfolk, this quantity demanding situations the reliable rhetoric of "constructive engagement" and "strategic partnership" among Europe and China, through revealing the interior and exterior barriers and constraints in their interplay. The contributions illustrate that Europe and China aren't static, monolithic, and unitary entities. Sino-European relatives have gotten a posh net of financial, diplomatic, social, and cultural interlinkages and are pushed via various actors with usually diverging pursuits. whereas exchange has been a dominant think about this courting, Europe and China are actually tied jointly through greater than advertisement exchanges. matters approximately power and weather switch, human rights and rules in the direction of Africa, geostrategic concerns, in addition to a pervasive nervousness approximately China's upward push in Europe are actually very important components of this dating. within the absence of universal borders or strategic pursuits in each one other's areas, Sino-European affairs are cordial and pleasant, but additionally stay far-off and obscure. The turning out to be volume of interactions has to this point now not ended in a qualitative improve of the connection. each side remain secondary companions to one another. Misperceptions, fake expectancies, and a common lack of awareness of every other's inner drivers of coverage remain significant hindrances for making improvements to ties among Europe and China.

Roland Vogt is assistant professor of ecu reviews on the college of Hong Kong.

"This quantity makes an incredible contribution to the literature on EU-China kinfolk, quite with its emphasis on how rhetoric and absence of incentives on either side create significant hindrances to upgrading the connection. Bringing jointly ten contributions through best students and new voices, the booklet bargains either sturdy scholarship and clean insights." — Ingrid d'Hooghe, The Netherlands Institute of diplomacy "Clingendael"

"This ebook represents a massive landmark within the sleek scholarship on international politics. a powerful checklist of experts supply one with an important relief to realizing of crucial beneficial properties of world politics within the final thirty years: the increase of China to worldwide prominence; and the emergence of the eu Union as an incredible participant in international politics. i can't reflect on a unmarried quantity that i'd relatively position within the fingers of somebody looking to comprehend the previous, current and destiny value of the multi-layered dating than Europe and China: Strategic companions or Rivals?" — R. Gerald Hughes, Aberystwyth University