LONDON - The European Union should enhance its dialogue with China and discuss more issues of strategic importance to both sides, European experts said.

"We need to discuss not only issues where we have shared interest, but also issues where we have conflicting interests," said Thomas Renard, a research fellow from the Egmont Royal Institute for International Relations, an independent think tank based in Brussels.

"A strategic partnership is not to discuss exclusively what is going well, but also to discuss what is not going well and to find solutions to it," he told China Daily.

Renard added: "We also should discuss issues that are of strategic importance globally, such as climate change or nuclear proliferation, or the future of global governance (the reform of the global order) in which the EU and China are two core players."

Rana Mitter, a professor at the Institute for Chinese Studies at the University of Oxford, noted that the EU should strengthen its strategic dialogue with China, and at the same time stress its core values.

Their comments came ahead of the second round of the China-EU high-level strategic dialogue.

State Councilor Dai Bingguo will pay a visit to Hungary from May 12 to 15, during which he will attend the China-EU strategic dialogue, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said.

Dai will make the visit as a guest of EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice-President of the Commission Catherine Ashton, and the Hungarian government.

"The EU does not have such dialogues with most of its strategic partners, meaning that China is seen as particularly important to Brussels. Witness this importance, as well the visit that European Council President Herman Van Rompuy will make to China soon," said Renard.

Dai and Ashton co-chaired the first round of the dialogue in southwestern China's Guizhou province last September.

The EU and China already have 56 dialogues, including a summit and meetings on issues including agriculture, culture, development and science, Renard said.

This is only slightly fewer than the 63 dialogues the EU has with the United States, but more than with any other strategic partner, again a sign of the importance of China in EU foreign policy, said Renard.

"Of course, the number is not everything and the efficiency of each dialogue should be assessed, but all in all the process of having a dialogue is a first crucial step," Renard added.

The high-level strategic dialogue comes as Sino-EU relations are developing at a rapid pace. According to the European Commission, China is the EU's second-biggest trade partner and its primary source of imports, while the EU ranks as China's primary trade partner.

"For many years, Europe and China were talking to each other, but not really listening. Today, we see more of a real dialogue between the two partners and that is very good indeed," Renard said.

European experts agreed that China's development offers a lot of opportunities to Europe.

The greening of China is in the interests of the EU and China, and it offers a great deal of cooperation opportunities to the private sector in Europe and to Chinese companies and investors, Renard noted.

"To increase trade and investment, both sides have to work on opening up their markets," Mitter said.

China Daily

(China Daily 05/09/2011 page11)