In contrast to the projects in agricultural production, fisheries and agroprocessing that were the mainstay of the first ten years of EU-China cooperation, new funding is expected to embrace programmes in legal and judicial affairs, 'village governance' and environmental technology, with two poverty focused integrated rural development programmes also in the pipeline.
Defining EU interests
The framework for future aid was set out in a 'Communication from the Commission' (COM(95)279) issued last July, A Long Term Policy for China-Europe Relations. In response to China's rapid rise as an economic and military power this document recommends a policy of "constructive engagement" and full Chinese integration into the international community through membership of multilateral bodies such as the new World Trade Organisation. Taking into account both trading issues and issues of global security, arms and immigration control, the communiqué‚ finds that Europe stands to benefit from sustained economic growth in China provided that growth occurs in a climate of political and social stability.
Stability is seen as most likely to be secured by further economic and social reform. "EU interests will therefore be well served", the document concludes, "by supporting the development in China of institutions and a civil society based on the rule of law".
At the same time, the document expresses concern that foreign direct investment in China from Europe lags behind that originating from Japan and America. This is seen as a key factor in market access, so a further plank of future cooperation policy will be "business cooperation", with an explicit commitment to "encouraging closer ties between EU and Chinese enterprises".
Food production
Since the 1985 signing of the EC-China Trade and Cooperation Agreement much of the largest technical and financial assistance projects have been in the dairy industry.
In the late 80s, butter oil and milk powder with a total value of 100 million Ecus (US$125 million approx) was donated for sale in China and the proceeds were re-invested in the dairy industry, focusing on 20 municipalities across the country. An additional, initial grant of 4.5 million Ecus ($5.6m.) was devoted to training, building up cattle stocks, buying milk processing equipment and bringing in consult- ants to advise on the national development of the industry.
A further 37 million Ecus ($46.3m.) have since been granted for a second, ongoing phase of the dairy project, aimed at restructuring state owned dairy corporations into market oriented enterprises and promoting township dairy cooperatives.
Over the last ten years grants totalling some 20 million Ecus ($25m.) have been made for equipment, training and consultancy in other sectors of agriculture, mariculture and fisheries, from prawn farming on the Dalian peninsula, to cashew farming on Hainan, apple storage in Shaanxi and potato development in Qinghai.
Two continuing projects focus on land management and reclamation. In Ningxia Hui Autonomous region, a 3.8 million Ecu ($4.75m.) grant was made to improve management of irrigation waters, reduce losses from canals and reclaim infertile land by leaching out excess salts. In Jiangxi, 4 million Ecus ($5m.) were contributed to a project to convert sandy areas along lake and river banks into productive use by planting shelterbelts and establishing pilot areas of irrigated horticulture.
A provincial irrigation training centre was set up in Gansu with a 1.7 million Ecu grant ($2.1m.) to consolidate an earlier irrigation project in the province.
New grants were approved last year for water buffalo husbandry in selected areas of the south west (2.8 m. Ecus) and for rangeland management in Qinghai (3.2 m. Ecus) The latter project, which started in October 1995 and will run until 2000, is intended "to prevent further soil erosion caused by overgrazing and rodent damage" and thus to increase productivity of goat, yak and sheep and raising incomes of (mainly ethnic Tibetan) herders.
The latest initiatives in the rural sector are two multi-million Ecu integrated development programmes. One, in Pa Nam county, Tibet, is still waiting for final approval after objections from international Tibetan support groups (see China Development Briefing 1)
Technology Centres
Agriculture is also supported through the China-EU Centre for Agricultural Technology (CECAT) which was established as a part of the agriculture ministry in 1990 with a 5.9 million Ecu grant ($7.4m.) and Chinese government co-funding. Now housed in its own premises, with a hotel and full conference facilities on site, the Centre organises and hosts conferences and seminars on all aspects of agri- cultural technology and offers consultancy, information and research services to Chinese and European clients.
Typical services range from briefing European business missions and undertaking market research for European companies to helping Chinese provincial and county agri- culture bureaus to identify and design projects in areas as diverse as salinity control, grain processing and rabbit breeding.
European and Chinese directors supervise more than a hundred research and ancillary staff, but often CECAT acts as a consultancy clearing house, for example linking Chinese agricultural research stations or institutes to relevant European expertise.
The Centre also houses an open-access information centre, with a range of specialist printed and electronic publications in agricultural technologies and links to other databases.
CECAT's start-up EU grant expires in January 1977, and discussions are being held about future funding. Meanwhile, in line with current policy to promote "a transfer of EU expertise in environmental policy-making and technology" (COM(95)279), preliminary approval has been given to a project to set up a new Chine-EU Centre for Environmental Technologies.
In the course of joint science and technology research programmes an EC-China Biotechnology Centre was also set up in 1991 "to act as an information bureau and catalyst for EU-China interaction". Biotechnology, as applied to agriculture and medicine, has been the main focus of EU funded research, but the total of some 70 joint projects has included studies in thermonuclear fusion and environmental science, including global change, observation and monitoring of air and water quality.
'Civil society'
One of the earliest EU backed projects was the China-Europe Management Institute, established in Beijing in 1984. The first Western business school in China, with a largely Western faculty, the Institute offered MBA courses to 'key university' graduates destined for senior management positions in Chinese and joint-venture industry. In 1994 the Institute moved to Shanghai and became the China-Europe International Business School. Jointly managed by Jiatong University and a network of European business schools, it describes its mission as being to produce "managers with an ability to interface with the international community". In addition to full time MBA courses, the school offers two-year part time courses for senior executives and a portfolio of short "executive development programmes".
Since its inception in Beijing, EU funding for the Institute/School has amounted to 22.6 million Ecus ($28m.). The school now also has 30 corporate sponsors, many of them large multinationals - the tobacco giant, BAT, for example, recently endowed a Chair of Marketing - and EU funding support is not expected to extend beyond 1998, when the school moves to a new campus in Pudong.
The business school is evidently regarded as a model of European engagement by the European Commission, which notes with concern in the COM(95)279 paper that "60,000 students from China are in the US, but only 6,000 in Europe" and resolves to find new ways, through cooperation schemes, to "build ties and networks between individual higher education institutions in China and the EU, and provide opportunities for Chinese students to benefit from European expertise".
Over the last five years the EU has also funded training schemes, involving seminars, symposia and placements overseas, for interpreters from trade and foreign affairs ministries (who later take on policy-making roles); for customs officials, accountants and economists from key ministries involved in economic reform.
In 1993 the European Patent Office helped set up an "industrial property training programme" for officials, lawyers, judges and businessmen This was intended "to improve awareness about the importance of intellectual property rights to the healthy development of a modern economy".
Now, a "legal and judicial cooperation" programme is being developed. It is expected to involve training, exchange programmes and study tours for lawyers, judges and law enforcement officers.
Promoting "a two-way flow of relevant commercial information" is seen as a key area for "business cooperation" and the COM(95)279 paper envisages doing this through trade and investment seminars in both Europe and China and by establishing a network of Business Information Centres in China. Such centres might, the paper suggests, be combined with cultural venues in a series of "Europa Houses" in big provincial cities.
These may help to "build up awareness of the EU in the media and among opinion formers in China", which the Commission is keen to achieve through a "more active information policy". This is underpinned by a strong, formal commitment to "informing the European public of the EU's activities [which] should be seen as an inherent part of the Commission's responsibility to implement policy".
The European Commission is also keen to encourage coordination of member states' aid programmes. Only eight per cent of total European development assistance to China comes from the EU itself, the remainder being contributed by national governments. The Commission is naturally inclined to see itself in a coordinating role. "There is much to be gained by pooling experience and resources" it notes, adding, in a frank acknowledgement that it is vying for influence in the new China, "If we do not cooperate our voice will not be heard".
A programme to combat sexually transmitted diseases and HIV/AIDS, which started in 1994 with an EU contribution of 2.4 million Ecus, also has a strong training and institutional capacity building focus, aiming to help China "build up an administrative and medical infrastructure to combat these diseases", The project involves equipping diagnostic laboratories in 25 cities and providing training in contact tracing and counselling.
Another project now being designed will address "village governance reform". Although a detailed strategy has yet to be agreed, the driving idea is to support and improve local electoral processes by which village committees are chosen. Possibilities being considered include training for administrative personnel who are responsible for conducting the elections and civic education for voters and elected officials in the rights and responsibilities that attach to democratic processes.