The EU and China are two of the largest and most highly interdependent traders in the world. In 2014, the EU became China's biggest trade partner and China the EU's second-biggest trading partner following the United States. Not only economically but also politically, the EU and China matter: China is among the world's “great powers,” but the EU's relevance as an international actor has also grown rapidly. Consequently, EU–China relations matter for global stability and prosperity, and the central aim of this book project was to explore the development of EU–China cooperation on security, both at the bilateral and multilateral level. To pursue this aim, a broad range of key themes in the field of EU–China security relations such as nuclear proliferation, international terrorist threats and cyber attacks were chosen, facilitated by two workshops, two conferences and a large number of working papers, accessible at the project website.

Throughout, the central objective was to bring together EU and Chinese views within a common research framework, involving threat perceptions, relevant policy responses, convergence levels and cooperation aspects. For the initial workshops, European and Chinese scholars prepared separate accounts of EU and Chinese perspectives on a range of security issues, which were published as online papers. During the second phase of the project, pairing scholars from Europe and Asia, authors collaborated on joint chapters in each of the ten substantive chapters. Earlier versions of the chapters were presented at further workshops and conferences benefiting from the comments of the community of scholars and researchers gathered for this project.

The book brings together almost thirty authors, including leading scholars on the subject. We are grateful for their cooperation in contributing to this book and to the project generally.

We have benefited from the individual advice and assistance of numerous colleagues, including Sven Biscop, Andrew Cottee, Duncan Freeman, Bruno Hellendorf, Jing Men, Shada Islam, Eoin Michael McNamara, Thomas Renard, Michael Reiterer, Gerhard Sabathil, Sabrina Schulz, Frans van der Putten, Peiran Wang, Wei Shen and Uwe Wissenbach.

We are indebted to the European Union's Life Long Education Programme, and the associated Jean Monnet Action Programme for generously funding our two-year research project. We are grateful to Alexandra Campos-Bray for her help and advice on administrative matters of the program.

The purpose of this chapter, and of the book as a whole, is to explore EU–China security relations, which have hitherto received scant attention in the writings on EU–China relations. This involves an empirical exercise of studying a number of security dimensions, through a number of heuristic orientations, structural interests and normative considerations. The purpose of these framing devices is to provide common elements of analysis to inform the following empirical chapters, rather than constitute a tight framework leading to systematic application.

EU–China security cooperation may appear tenuous and of little significance when seen next to the substantial amount of trade and other forms of economic cooperation between the two sides. Nevertheless, it is a topic of steadily rising importance, not only because economic and security concerns are becoming increasingly intertwined, but also as nontraditional security threats become more pronounced in international relations. Indeed, aside from economic interdependence, other factors affect the incidence of security cooperation between China and the EU. On the one hand, neither the EU nor China considers the other side as a potential enemy or a military threat – though the nondemocratic nature of the Chinese regime and its maritime territorial disputes continue to be viewed with suspicion by EU policymakers and public opinion (Casarini 2012: 4; Keohane et al. 2014). Instead, both China and the EU support a multipolar international order, and both adopt multilateralism as a key element of their foreign policy, albeit with differences in its practical application.

On the other hand, the EU and China have very different attitudes to key principles of inter-state relations such as state sovereignty, nonintervention and the territorial integrity of states. Furthermore, democratic aspirations and other normative concerns such as the rule of law or good governance matter for the EU in a way that they do not for China. More fundamentally, the fact that the EU is not a state carries with it limitations regarding the cohesion of its security policy, with security and defense policy remaining largely the prerogative of member states. The absence of a distinct EU military presence in Asia and the NATO membership of most EU countries diminish EU attractiveness as a genuine (independent) security actor in its dealings with China.

The ambition in producing this volume was to examine the nature and extent of relations between the European Union and China beyond the scope of trade and investment. While there is no doubt that this relationship continues to be dominated by economic concerns, the preceding chapters have demonstrated the multifaceted character of the cooperation between the two powers and the value in probing deeper into the various security dimensions of this relationship.

Seeking to identify a security perspective in the context of a predominantly economic partnership is not a contradiction. Indeed, these two aspects of EU–China relations can be seen as two sides of the same coin: precisely because the EU and China are such significant trading partners, both also have an inherent interest in various kinds of cooperation that can help to underpin their mutual security (Gartzke 2007). Or, to put it differently, the fact that Europe and China perceive each other as trading partners – and not as adversaries – also makes it easier to consider cooperation across a range of security domains.

From such a starting point, EU–China security cooperation is not a utopian concept or a normative agenda, but an empirical question – a question that requires the kind of detailed analysis across a range of relevant areas that the contributions to this volume have provided. Building on these foundations, the purpose of this concluding chapter is threefold. First, to bring together the individual analyses and aggregate them, as much as possible, into a comprehensive picture. Second, the wider context influencing EU–China security relations will be brought into focus, including issues such as the potential for differences among EU member states and the role of third countries as impacting on this relationship in the context of global security. Finally, based on the preceding analysis and discussion, the chapter will provide an overall assessment of the current state and future prospects of EU–China security relations.

Security Cooperation between the EU and China – Toward Convergence?

The contributions to this volume have systematically analyzed EU–China security relations across a range of traditional and nontraditional dimensions of security. The guiding questions, as established in our introductory chapter, concerned the degree to which one can observe convergence between the two sides with respect to both the perceptions of threats facing the polity/society as well as the domestic policy response in addressing such threats.

The protection of civilians against natural and man-made disasters has increasingly become a governmental responsibility. Urbanization, industrialization and globalization have highlighted vulnerabilities to “natural disasters, industrial or transportation accidents, terror attacks, critical infrastructure failures, or a ‘near miss’ of one of these” (ANVIL n.d.). Befittingly, civil protection has become a salient security issue for the European Union as well as China. Yet, as will be argued below, this increased prominence has only led to a partial convergence in policy responses. Notable differences remain in the understanding of the nature of (the) security threats, the allocation of responsibilities and the general approach to civil protection.

In the EU, civil protection is progressively a transnational policy area, whereas in China it is largely still developing as a national policy area. At the same time, civil protection is a policy area where some convergence can be observed. China has developed a broader nontraditional understanding of civil protection and the role of the military has become less pronounced. China's capabilities in civil protection have also strengthened so it is better able and more willing to respond to external and transboundary crises. Agreement on the need to respond to specific crises – and mutual interest in effective responses – creates space for collaboration, which so far has been limited to mainly technical matters. Arguably, civil protection is an area where there are clear opportunities to build trust and to broaden the scope of collaboration.

Civil protection is commonly referred to as civil security, civil (air) defense and crisis management. These related concepts reveal subtle differences in the understanding of the nature of (in)security addressed in civil protection. The Chinese distinction between renfang (civil air defense) and minfang (civil defense) shows the origins of civil protection against air raids as well as a more recent broader understanding of civil protection. In Europe, civil protection developed under the shadow of the Cold War, but it has evolved strongly from the predominantly traditional security domain (for example, nuclear attacks) to the largely nontraditional one (for example, natural disasters such as earthquakes and flooding, but also industrial accidents). The EU has combined responsibilities for civil protection and humanitarian aid in one Directorate-General of the EU Commission (the Directorate-General for Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid, DG ECHO), illustrating a broad nontraditional interpretation.