China – EU’s “Significant Other”?

Not a Chess Game Strategy

Authors

  • Martin Milanov Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.12797/Politeja.18.2021.73.03

Keywords:

European Union, China, strategy, identity, governance

Abstract

Following the idea of the “other” in the work of Ernesto Laclau and the perspective of post-foundational discourse analysis, the study focusses on Chinese strategical internal and external pre- and post-Covid-19 political specifics and policies and how they interact (or contradict) with the “European” vision of the world and most importantly itself. As Laclau says, “the notion of “constitutive outside” emphasizes the always present possibility that differential relationship between an entity and its “constitutive outside” turns into antagonism.” For more than three decades, the EC/EU has been steadily building up its foreign relations architecture and has proven its desire to project its ideals and values worldwide. However, during the same period, after “the century of humiliation,” China has also reached a point in its history where it wants to see the world according to its national interests and views. This work attempts to analyze some key features inherent to both the EU and China, such as strategies, relation with other countries, typical governmental architecture, and some aspects of identity, which could help in better understanding the possible contradictions and areas of cooperation in their way of conceptualizing themselves as key players on the world stage. This will reflect the need for greater European civic awareness in the upcoming decades, as suggested by the author.

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Author Biography

Martin Milanov, Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”

Is a PhD student at Sofia University in the Faculty of European Studies. He is primarily concentrating his work in the field of European and Chinese Identity related to the foreign policy as his master’s degrees are in “European integration and diplomacy of EU” in the same faculty with a thesis “European Common Foreign and Security Policy and the global initiative “One belt, One Road” of China” and in “International Organisations and Multilateral Diplomacy” in the Faculty of Law and International Relations in Sofia University with a thesis on “European Common Foreign and Security Policy in the East-Asian world order.”

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Published

2021-11-29

How to Cite

Milanov, Martin. 2021. “China – EU’s ‘Significant Other’? : Not a Chess Game Strategy”. Politeja 18 (4(73):53-65. https://doi.org/10.12797/Politeja.18.2021.73.03.