Genesis Of The 16 + 1 Cooperation Framework Analysis

Genesis of the 16+1 Cooperation Framework
China’s new strategy toward CEE has emerged in the last three years. It can be called the regional approach. The so-called regional approach to deal with Central and Eastern European countries can be regarded as a breakthrough in China’s policy towards Central and Eastern European countries. China has expanded the scope of its European policy, increased its engagement with CEEC. The regional approach signaled a new way of thinking in the Chinese EU-policy. It was in 2011 that China started thinking about relations with Central and Eastern European countries in terms of regional approach. Therefore, the CEEC’s weight in China’s foreign relations has increased substantially. On June 25th, 2011, the first
Before the first round of EU enlargement, China issued its first EU Policy Paper, in which it was aimed to enlarged EU. The document mentioned the forthcoming enlargement, “In 2004, the EU will be enlarged to a total membership of 25. The new European Union would then cover much of Eastern and Western Europe with an area of four million square kilometers, a population of 450 million and a GDP of over 10 trillion US Dollars”. It means that China started to put newcomers in EU from CEE in European perspective. Relations with Central and Eastern European countries are embedded in the strategic framework of China-Europe relations. China’s foreign policies towards Europe can be categorized into different layers: the relations with European powers (Germany France and UK); the relations with EU institutions; relations with sub-regions (Southern Europe, Northern Europe and Central and Eastern Europe). 16+1 framework does give CEEC a position in China’s foreign
Fast-pace economic growth and better-off of people’s welfare can be attributed to proper economic reform strategy, sound economic policy, opening to the outside world and active participation in the process of globalization over the last three decades. China overtook Japan, become world second largest economy by nominal GDP in 2010. China is a global hub for manufacturing, and is the largest manufacturing economy in the world. The most important thing is that reform set the depressed entrepreneurial spirit free, some innovative and competitive enterprises came into being, these companies have moved up the value chain and competed with other firms in China and elsewhere around the world. China’s entry into WTO at the end of 2001 is an event of milestone that drives the growth of foreign trade. "go global" strategy was put forward in 2002. Chinese government encourages Chinese firms to explore global market, Eastern Europe included. In the last decade prior to China’s WTO accession, China’s growth in foreign trade averaged 15.5% per annum. In the next ten years from 2002 to 2011 following the accession, the average yearly growth rate increased up to 22.6%. After the global financial crisis, China’s foreign trade slowed down substantially. China’s imports and exports decreased by 13.9% in 2009 as China felt the pinch of the shocks from the US sub-prime crisis. As China