EU-China relations. Strategic or pragmatic, the future or already the past?

The relationship between the European Union and the People’s Republic of China is one that brings together two unique partners. Looking first of all into the political structures we discover major differences. On the one hand, we have a multi-level governance institution sui generis with partly shared sovereignty that is still expanding and currently comprises 27 nation states. On the other hand, we see a centrally administered, semiauthoritarian state of more than thirty sub-national units comprising 1.3 billion inhabitants, paying traditionally great attention to maintain its geographical unity. Provinces – the first sub-national level in China – are in size, population, and in some cases even economic power on equal footing with individual member states of the EU