ABSTRACT
During the Cold War, China’s relations with the European Community were predominantly a “secondary relationship,” a relationship dependent on China’s (and Western Europe’s) “primary relationship” with the USA and the USSR (Yahuda 1994; Shambaugh 1996). Yet, even after the Cold War, despite the rise of China as an economic superpower and the emergence of the European Union (EU), this relationship does not seem to have emerged from the ever-present shadow of the USA to become a primary, important “axis” in its own right (Shambaugh 2004).
