Stronger trade, higher investment will boost China-EU relations

Citing data, some Belgian media outlets have reported that Chinese investors in Belgium have created up to 18,500 jobs for local residents. And on average one Chinese investor has contributed €1 million ($1.08 million) in revenue, reflecting the high productivity and profit-making capability of Chinese investment.

Some Central and Eastern European countries are facing labor shortages partly because of growing Chinese investment in manufacturing and the end of European Union’s economic stagnation. In the past five years, Huawei, for example, has created up to 12,000 jobs in the EU.

Last week, Belgium and Hungary became full-time members of the Chinaled Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, which means one-third of the bank’s 70 members are from Europe. And the development path of the AIIB suggests cooperation among members will deepen to bring Asia, Europe and Africa closer.

But despite the EU marking its 60th anniversary, its leaders are in a somber mood, as European Commission President Jean-claude Juncker put it, because of the United Kingdom beginning the formal process to leave the EU and the uncertainties created by the United States administration under President Donald Trump.

After the EC’s recent decision to assess China’s investment activities in the EU more strictly, some members of the European Parliament have also proposed that foreign investment in Europe should be closely monitored in “strategic sectors” such as energy, water and telecommunications. Many observers say the move is targeted at China, where EU businesses, according to European politicians, don’t have the same access that Chinese enterprises do in Europe. The politicians even claim that EU investment in China is falling.

More jobs and better livelihoods will make more Europeans, especially those youths struggling to earn a decent living, have more confidence in the EU as an economic union.