Join this session to hear from Alistair Cole on 'Shelter from the storm? EU-China relations in the light of the Comprehensive Agreement on Investment'
After seven years of discussion, the EU and China recently announced a preliminary agreement on an EU-China investment treaty. This announcement was made just days before President Biden assumed office in the United States. In this talk, Professor Alistair Cole, Head of the Department of Government and International Studies at Hong Kong Baptist University, will review this agreement from the perspective of three main questions. First, the agreement itself: why did it take so long to materialise? What does it contain and what is glossed over? Which difficult issues needed to be addressed in the negotiations? Second, is this a White Elephant? Will it ever be ratified (arguably less likely given the sanctions placed on leading members of the European Parliament)? Third, what does this tell us about the nature of the EU as a global actor and about the overarching nature of the EU-China relationship in early 2021? |