Brussels, 08/09/2000 (Agence Europe) - "Despite the great expansion in EU-China relations of the past two years, their field of further development still remains considerable", says the European Commission in its first report on the implementation of the Communication "Building a Comprehensive Partnership with China" which the Council approved in June 1998. In this very factual report, adopted this week, the Commission makes an assessment of actions taken and recommends new paths: accompany China's accession to the WTO expected for the beginning of 2001, back the comprehensive reform process in China, refine the definition of sectors that will benefit from aid to cooperation. These subjects should be looked at in more depth at the third EU/China Summit, to be held in Beijing on 23 October.
Regarding cooperation, "it is obvious that socio-economic reforms, the development of human resources, education, the environment, the promotion of human rights and the rule of law will continue to be among the priorities". In addition, the Commission will continue to place emphasis on sustainable development and combating poverty in a country where 11.5% of the population lives below the poverty line. Cooperation will remain focused on a few projects, Community funding remaining limited to some 65 million euro a year.
At the same time, the Commission stresses, the time has now come to explore the possibility of broadening the dialogue in the sectors defined by the 1998 Communication: "for example, the fight against illegal drug trafficking, organised crime, money-laundering and illegal immigration", as many fields raised during the Chinese President's visit to Brussels in July, in the context of the Dover tragedy that had placed the question of illegal immigration at the centre of talks between China and the EU.
The report (which EUROPE will publish in full in its EUROPE/Documents series) makes an assessment of actions undertaken over two years in the major sectors defined in the 1998 Communication: 1) engaging China further in the international community: through bilateral summits and within Asem, diplomatic contacts and specific dialogue on its development, as well as "embryonic" dialogue on the non-proliferation of weapons; 2) support the transition to an open society based on the rule of law and the respect of human rights: the Commission acknowledges that although there has been a gradual improvement in economic and social rights and progress made in strengthening the rule of law, this is not the case in the field of civil and political rights that are even back-sliding. Other than the bilateral dialogue on human rights resumed in 1997 but that still has to provide concrete results, the Commission has launched several programmes linked to legal training: 3) bringing China into the world trading system: after the conclusion of the EU/China bilateral agreement of 19 May 2000 for China's accession to the WTO, the Commission places emphasis on accompanying the reform process (training of civil servants, statistics, intellectual property, financial services). In addition, on a bilateral level, the Commission is considering opening new paths of dialogue for specific sectors like that of industrial standards and authorization procedures, health and plant health issues, market and securities regulation, and industrial affairs. A maritime agreement is being negotiated and an agreement on the civilian nuclear sector is the subject of exploratory contacts. Sustainable management of energy is also an important aspect of bilateral cooperation.