This week on Sinica, I chat with SCMP Senior Europe Correspondent Finbarr Bermingham, who joins from Brussels where he's been covering the EU-China relationship in fantastic depth and with great insight.

3:17 – EU-China relations in early 2025: the effect of the 2021 sanctions, who advocated for engagement versus confrontation with China, and the importance of the Comprehensive Agreement on Investment (CAI)

13:49 – How Brussels initially reacted to the rupture in the transatlantic alliance

17:14 – China’s so-called charm offensive

21:03 – The idea of de-risking from Washington

23:10 – The impact of the Oval Office meeting with Zelensky

24:55 – Europe’s dual-track approach with China and shift toward pragmatism

29:35 – National interests versus EU unity regarding Chinese investment, and whether Brussels could extract concessions

35:20 – Brussels’ worry over Trump cutting a deal with China

38:06 – Possible signs of China’s flexibility on different issues

40:25 – The lifting of the sanctions on European parliamentarians

42:21 – The decrease in calls for values-based diplomacy, and whether securitization is happening in Europe

47:05 – How the EU might address tensions over China’s industrial overcapacity

50:17 – The possible future of EU-China relations, and whether the transatlantic relationship could go back to normal

55:50 – The knee-jerk element of looking past Europe

Paying It Forward: Ji Siqi at SCMP, Cissy Zhou at Nikkei, and Kinling Lo and Viola Zhou at Rest of World

Recommendations:

Finbarr: The Stakeknife podcast series; Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden Keefe; and the 20th anniversary edition of Wilco’s album, A Ghost Is Born

Kaiser: The Ottomans: Khans, Caesars, and Caliphs by Marc David Baer

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Introducing Lauren Passey and Alex Barr from Currencycloud EMEA