European China Policy: Track 1.5 Workshop 2021

Co-hosted by the German Federal Foreign Office and MERICS, the workshop offered a venue for discussing and recalibrating European China policy at a time of major shifts in European and global politics.

Now in its eighth edition, the European China Policy Track 1.5 Workshop has travelled through various European capitals in throughout the years. As on previous occasions, the workshop gathered senior officials from France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain and the EU as well as leading European China experts from the think tank community. Discussions were informed by brief, policy-oriented inputs and took place on a strictly confidential basis.

Sessions discussed the way forward for EU China policy, China’s political trajectory ahead and beyond the 20th Party Congress and Europe’s security interests in the Indo-Pacific Region. Furthermore, the focus was on the challenges and opportunities of economic cooperation and scientific collaboration with China in a political environment of systemic rivalry, decoupling and sanctions.