IMPROVED TIES: Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao greets visiting President of the European Council Herman Van Rompuy in Beijing on May 17 (PANG XINGLEI)

Following the Sino-EU Strategic Dialogue in Budapest on May 12, President of the European Council Herman Van Rompuy visited China. This visit showed how the EU will emphasize its relationship with China in the years to come.

"My visit to China is the first official bilateral visit of the permanent president of the European Council outside Europe," said Van Rompuy in Beijing on May 17. Since assuming the council's presidency more than a year ago, Van Rompuy has been busy handling lingering internal problems from the global financial crisis in the EU.

Chinese leaders arranged a high-level reception for Van Rompuy, fully illustrating China's political support for European integration, a process that has been ongoing since the 1950s. As a regional organization, the EU has only partial UN rights, such as participating in the UN General Assembly, delivering speeches and submitting bills. The EU, however, is denied voting right.

During his visit, Van Rompuy appreciated China's extension of a helping hand to the EU at a time when the EU suffers economic troubles.

"I expressed my appreciation to the president for the strong confidence China displayed in the euro area, both with direct investments and through reserve investment policies," Van Rompuy said, following his meeting with Chinese President Hu Jintao.

China supports a stable euro zone. The EU is in urgent need of a replacement for former IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who resigned following a scandal on May 18. Once this is accomplished, the IMF will be able to continue its close cooperation with the EU to solve Europe's sovereign debt crisis. As it stands, some EU members, like Greece, have reached a critical point in the crisis. Without close coordination with the IMF to prevent debt restructuring and revive the world's confidence in the euro, the future of the euro will be in jeopardy.

China, an important member of the IMF, did not challenge the EU's choice of Christine Lagarde, France's current finance minister, as its preferred candidate for the IMF chief.

With 27 member states and a combined population of nearly 500 million people, the EU is one of the most important economies in the world. China and the EU have made joint efforts and built a close trade and economic relationship, which is an important component of the Sino-EU comprehensive strategic partnership.

Sino-EU trade has grown rapidly in the past six years. According to statistics from Chinese customs, even in 2008, when the financial crisis was at its zenith, bilateral trade between China and the EU reached $425.58 billion, increasing 19.5 percent from the year before. The figure is 9 percentage points and 6.5 percentage points higher respectively than the annual growth rates of Sino-U.S. trade and Sino-Japanese trade in the same year. In 2010, trade volume between China and the EU was nearly $480 billion. In the first quarter this year, their trade grew 22 percent over the same time in 2010, reaching $123.7 billion.

Today, the EU is China's top trade partner, biggest export market, second biggest source of imports, biggest technology supplier and fourth biggest investor. China is the EU's second largest trade partner, biggest source of imports and second biggest export market.

Trade and economic cooperation promotes the interests of and benefits both sides. The EU's role in coordinating member states' foreign trade policies has contributed greatly to burgeoning trade and economic relations between China and the EU. The two sides held the first Sino-EU High Level Economic and Trade Dialogue at the vice-premier level in Beijing in 2008. In 2010, they upgraded their Strategic Dialogue aimed at addressing strategic and political issues to a dialogue between China's state councilor and the EU foreign policy chief.

Both China and the EU recently issued new development strategies—Europe 2020 and China's 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-15). Both emphasize looking for new economic growth engines to foster a green economy.

"It is very encouraging that China has decided to gradually implement a carbon-market mechanism as one key tool for reducing industrial emissions cost-effectively. We will engage with our Chinese counterparts in order to further explore their intentions," said EU Commissioner for Climate Action Connie Hedegaard in March.

The author is an associate research fellow with the China Institute of International Studies