Will US-China trade war hinder Europe-China HE links?

Brexit, the rise of populism, the United States retreating from multilateralism and provoking a trade war with China are all factors creating major uncertainties for higher education in Europe.

Meanwhile, the launch of China’s New Silk Road geopolitical strategy (or the Belt and Road Initiative or One Belt, One Road initiative) is gradually becoming more defined as a framework for its higher education policy, meaning Europe needs to formulate a strategic response.

In 2018, the European Union recognised the importance of strengthening relations with China “as one of its most important strategic partners, witnessing an ever deeper and broader relationship in almost every area”.

But despite its strong relations with China – the EU is China’s largest trading partner – growing tensions between the US and China, including pressure from the US to ban Huawei from the development of 5G networks in Europe, are causing the EU-China relationship to become more strained.

To the point that the EU described it scarcely a year later as: “A cooperation partnership with whom the EU has closely aligned objectives; a negotiating partnership, with whom the EU needs to find a balance of interests; an economic competitor in pursuit of technological leadership; and a system rival promoting alternative models of governance.”

The notion of ‘system rival’ in particular was considered ‘tough talk’ by China.

Undeniably fuelled by signals from the US, concerns have been growing in Europe over Beijing’s investments (FDI or foreign direct investments), acquisitions and influence in certain EU member states (mostly on its southern borders) and the China-Central and Eastern European Countries Cooperation alliance (or 16+1 countries, mostly in Eastern Europe), its attitude towards intellectual property, the ‘dual use’ of knowledge for scientific and military purposes, data privacy and security, research integrity, academic freedom and some other key values that are characteristic of open societies.

Growing collaboration

Sino-European higher education collaboration has a centuries-long history. Since China’s re-opening in 1978, many bilateral ties have been re-established and multilateral collaboration has been built up over 40 years between (predecessors of) the EU and China.

Research cooperation was first established in 1985 under an agreement on trade and economic cooperation. EU-China dialogues on science and technology started in the early 1990s and the first EU-China Science and Technology Agreement was signed in 1998. EU Framework Programmes for Research and Innovation were opened for Chinese participation in 2004.

The collaboration process has continued and been intensified, guided by a series of High Level Innovation Cooperation Dialogues and eventually resulted in a common Roadmap for EU-China Science and Technology Cooperation in 2017 and China being included in some of the EU’s Joint Programming Initiatives in 2018.

On the education side, Erasmus Mundus was opened to China in 2004 and Erasmus+ in 2015. Cooperation in this area (including curriculum innovation, recognition of academic or professional degrees and outcome-based education) has been intensified since 2012 under the EU-China High-Level People-to-People Dialogues and with the establishment of the EU-China Higher Education Platform for Cooperation and Exchange.

The EU-China relationship in research and higher education has thus evolved over a few decades from an uneven aid relationship to become closer and more equal, eventually jointly embracing commendable common goals, such as the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.

Meanwhile, China has evolved from a developing country to a partner and recently to a competitor with the EU in specific research and development (R&D) areas.

China’s R&D investments surpassed those of the EU in 2014. In 2017 the EU realised that its performance lead in science, technology and innovation was decreasing rapidly, with China having improved more than seven times faster.

In 2019 it recognised China as “an industrial and innovation powerhouse” due to the success of its ‘Made in China 2025’ strategy. China is determined to push beyond this and become a world space power by 2045.

The New Silk Road

It is still too early to assess what role the New Silk Road might play in this respect. It seems so far to be mostly creating new opportunities for internationalisation of (higher) education (for instance, with regard to foreign languages and area and business studies), for exporting professional training to ‘Belt and Road countries’, mostly in (central) Asia, and for attracting students from those countries to study in China.

China’s R&D collaboration strategy, meanwhile, seems to remain mostly focused on top institutions in the West. Considering the growing tensions with the US, intensification of research contacts with Europe is likely. Increased student flows and a shift of Chinese PhD students to European destinations is already happening.

Although this is mostly welcome, it should be noted that continental European universities have never made themselves as dependent on high-fee paying Chinese students as universities in countries with a higher education export industry such as the US, the United Kingdom and Australia. European higher education is more geared towards mutual exchange and collaboration.

But despite all the high-level dialogues, joint programming and co-funding mechanisms, the EU-China collaboration is still unbalanced in terms of flows of students, investments, efforts and results. Conditions are uneven for data sharing and around access and privacy issues. This is a dilemma when compared to the EU’s continued promotion of open access and open science.

The 21st EU-China Summit in April 2019 foreshadowed a renewal of the EU-China Science and Technology Cooperation Agreement and highlighted concerns over research ethics and technology transfer by including in the joint statement that the “two sides reaffirmed the importance of adhering to international scientific standards”.

There are concerns in particular with regard to the use of artificial intelligence (AI) technology in relation to personal privacy, leading to criticism of China’s Social Credit System. However, there are also growing fears about the use of such technologies by Western agencies and companies in Europe itself.

The recent publication of ethical standards by a Beijing AI consortium as part of a call for international cooperation could signal that China would be open to dialogue about how it uses such technology. US experts from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology noted that the newly published guidelines seem remarkably similar to ethical frameworks laid out by Western companies and governments.

The unprecedented pace at which China has developed, especially over the past decade, in its quest to be a global player in science research has perhaps gone unnoticed for a while.

The shockwaves this has recently created have been accompanied by a growing awareness of China’s enhanced geopolitical assertiveness and geostrategic ambitions as well as weakened security guarantees from the US. The New Silk Road is rolling out at a time of great uncertainty in Europe.

At the same time, it potentially creates great opportunities for the EU, including a new context for higher education cooperation with China.

Rather than ‘China bashing’, various European university leaders have openly defended the continuation of cooperation with China, mostly for the sake of its rising excellence and scientific weight, while more generally underlining the importance of science diplomacy in politically tense situations.

Criticism of China’s soft power through the Confucius Institutes also seems less pronounced than in the US. Europe hosts 173 (or 33% of the worldwide total) Confucius Institutes, which in Europe are viewed more as a Chinese version of the cultural diplomacy institutes such as the British Council, Alliance Française and the Goethe-Institut, through which European countries have themselves for long been promoting their languages and advocating their cultures.

The UK’s Conservative Party Human Rights Commission called for a moratorium on new Confucius Institutes and one Dutch university has reviewed its relationship with a Confucius Institute. However, the Dutch minister of education, culture and science did not see the need for government intervention.

The new geopolitical reality

Yet the EU has to come to grips with the new geopolitical reality. Like the US, the EU is more aware and will push harder for equitable and mutually beneficial bilateral trade relations and non-discriminatory market access.

But it is also committed, unlike the US, to continue its partnership with China to sustain multilateralism and consequent support for institutions that uphold this, such as the United Nations and the World Trade Organization.

Internal EU politics, including contrasting EU member state views regarding the relationship with China and divergent views regarding the EU itself – of which Brexit is an example – as well as a weak mandate with regard to foreign policy, security and defence, complicate a consistent response to China’s geopolitics.

How then can the EU insist on a true level playing field in R&D and higher education, requiring China to be as open as it is and adhere to joint standards, as it might do in a trade negotiation?

Considering the overlap between issues such as intellectual property rights, foreign direct investment, technology transfer and recognition of qualifications, which affect both trade and R&D, and given the strengths of the EU’s legal competencies in trade compared to its weaker ones in research and supporting education, it may be better to negotiate R&D under trade agreements.

Should the EU therefore return to the original 1985 logic and treat higher education collaboration with China as part of a trade deal?

Marijk van der Wende is distinguished faculty professor of higher education at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, guest professor at Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China and coordinator of the international New Silk Road research project. Interested students and researchers are welcome to join the discussion during the New Silk Road Summer School, to be hosted by Utrecht University from 19-23 August 2019.