Chinese Premier Li Keqiang (C) speaks next to European Council President Donald Tusk (L) and President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker (R) at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. (File photo/AFP) The EU-China summit begins on Tuesday amid growing bilateral angst. Europe is becoming increasingly important to Chinese foreign policy, fueling concerns in Brussels that Beijing is “dividing and ruling” to undermine the continent’s collective interests. Take the example of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s trip last month to Italy, during which he signed a landmark memorandum of understanding for the Belt and Road Initiative. Brussels has long had reservations about the BRI, not least given the frustrations over Beijing’s perceived slowness to open up its own economy, and a wave of Chinese takeovers of European companies in key industries. Italy’s decision to work with China is only the latest development in Europe that has underlined Beijing’s growing influence across the continent, something of which EU officials are increasingly conscious. Another example is the annual “16+1” meeting of China and key countries in Eastern and Central Europe. This 16+1 format is an initiative by Beijing aimed at intensifying and expanding cooperation in the fields of investment, transport, finance, science, education and culture with 11 EU member states and 5 Balkan countries: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Montenegro, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia and Slovenia. The next 16+1 meeting will begin on April 12 in Croatia. It follows the success of the seventh annual event last July in Bulgaria, which focused on Beijing’s growing regional investment and featured the participation of about 250 Chinese businesses and 700 European companies. Key trends are apparent in China’s external interventions in Europe. For instance, it is becoming increasingly clear that Beijing is tailoring its approach around the bespoke needs of individual states or blocs of countries, such as the 16+1. Furthermore, the Chinese overtures to Europe are coming with a clear quid pro quo element, as underlined by Italy signing up to BRI in exchange for investment from Beijing. This is of concern not only to Brussels, but also Washington. Last month’s Italy-China BRI agreement, for instance, was criticized by Garrett Marquis, a National Security Council spokesman, who said there was “no need for the Italian government to lend legitimacy to China’s infrastructure vanity project.” In this context of growing angst between Brussels and Beijing, Tuesday’s summit provides an opportunity for both sides to stress the many areas of common interest and cooperation. The EU co-hosts, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and European Council President Donald Tusk, and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang will highlight a range of issues, from the importance of an open, multilateral trading system to tackling climate change. It is clear that the EU and China have much to gain from a deeper partnership on a range of issues, but the window of opportunity may not remain open indefinitely. Andrew Hammond Global warming, for example, is a topic on which there has long been fruitful dialogue. Under the terms of the 2015 EU-China climate-change declaration, both parties are cooperating on developing a cost-effective low-carbon economy, which is especially important in light of the Trump administration’s abdication of the climate agenda. Collectively, the EU and China account for about a third of global greenhouse emissions, a proportion that with the addition of the US grows to half. The 2015 bilateral climate change declaration was one of the key drivers, along with the Obama administration’s diplomacy, of the Paris deal. The reason EU-China discussions on climate change are so generally cooperative is that, fundamentally, both share a vision of a prosperous, energy-secure future in a stable climate and recognize the need for collaboration to realize this. In the 2015 agreement, for instance, they agreed to intensify cooperation in areas including domestic mitigation policies, carbon markets, low-carbon cities, greenhouse-gas emissions from the aviation and maritime industries, and hydrofluorocarbons. China’s planned investment in the green economy is huge, a fact that the EU is increasingly recognizing. This investment is buttressed by Beijing’s policy commitments on the climate, clean-air and energy agendas. In recent five-year plans, for example, a strategic direction has been set for the economy with a determination to change the development model from low-grade, labor-intensive manufacturing toward a greater emphasis on services and innovation. Another sign of the seriousness of Beijing’s climate ambitions is that it is using the experience of its subnational pilot emission-trading schemes to inform development of its future national model. Here, Beijing is proving open and willing to learn from the pioneering European Emissions Trading System, while adapting this experience to China’s domestic circumstances. To be clear, there is still a way to go before China has a fully fledged carbon market, and both Beijing and Brussels have yet to develop new low-carbon standards in key industrial sectors. However, the direction in which both are heading is clear: cooperation could build low-carbon industries in a range of sectors, and also align Europe more closely with the world’s future largest economy. So it is clear that the EU and China have much to gain from a deeper partnership on a range of issues, but the window of opportunity may not remain open indefinitely. Now is therefore the time to intensify cooperation to bolster growth and help define the landscape of international relations in the 21st century. Andrew Hammond is an Associate at LSE IDEAS at the London School of Economics. Disclaimer: Views expressed by writers in this section are their own and do not necessarily reflect Arab News" point-of-view