From January 14 to 15, 2016, the Institute of International and Strategic Studies (IISS) of Peking University and the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) co-organized the Second Joint Seminar. During the seminar entitled “China, Europe and the United Nations in the Era of Crisis”, participants discussed international strategies and regional hot issues.

In unit one entitled “One Belt and One Road and Public Security Assurance”, François Godement, Director of ECFR’s Asia & China Program, believed that the One Belt and One Road initiative aims at promoting regional stability and cooperation and China should invite European countries and Turkey to join the initiative to further expand the space for tripartite cooperation. He suggested that China should not deploy excessive military forces in East Asia, which already aroused the vigilance of China’s neighboring countries. China should play an even greater role in stabilizing the international order. Zhao Minghao, Associate Research Fellow of the China Center for Contemporary World Studies, believed that China hopes to promote global cooperation and develop the economy through the One Belt and One Road initiative, which can contribute to stabilizing the situation and preventing the spread of extremism. Europe should seize this opportunity to deepen cooperation with China. Kong Tianping, Research Fellow from the Institute of European Studies of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, pointed out that the nature of One Road and One Belt initiative is to develop the economy and Europe should not view it as a geopolitical plan.

In unit two entitled “Energy Security Issues in Geopolitics”, Neil Melvin, Senior Research Fellow of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute pointed out that in recent years the global energy industry had been constrained by geopolitical competitions among powers, the political instability within nations and recurrent crisis. According to him, to promote energy security in countries along the One Belt and One Road, China and Europe should cooperate with Russia and consider economic and security issues at the same time. Liu Xu, Associate Professor at the School of International Studies of Renmin University of China, evaluated Russian energy policies and the development situation of the energy industry. According to him, the Russian energy industry has been dealt a hard blow by the reduction in global oil price and western sanctions. Though it has maintained its vitality with the support of the government, the prospect is not optimistic and the foreign energy relations of Russia have been highly politicized, which damages the global energy security.

In unit three entitled “Crisis Management in China-Europe Relations”, Richard Gowan, Senior Research Fellow of ECFR believed that the collective security assurance interests in Europe are changing and Europe is faced with multiple security crisis in the South and East. Eastern Russia has become the major security threat for Europe and turbulences in Southern Middle East, Northern Africa and rampant Islamic states have posed serious challenges. While strengthening the functions of NATO and other security organizations, Europe has placed high expectations on cooperation with China. According to Prof. Zha Daojiong at the School of International Studies, Peking University, China is still taking a wait-and-see attitude to the situation in the Middle East and since Middle East and Northern Africa are not the priorities for China’s diplomacy, there is a slim chance for China to intervene in reality. China and Europe are likely to cooperate mainly on anti-terrorism, but the double standard adopted by the west in defining terrorism is a critical factor to impede the cooperation.
In unit four entitled “Coping with the threat from radicalism”, Director of International Security Studies at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) illustrated with the example of British extremism that the extremalization of religious thoughts is a complicated process at the individual level and the dissatisfaction with the society, ideological influence, and mobilization of organizations are three critical factors. Parasitic in nature, extremist organizations make use of individuals’ dissatisfaction with various social problems to expand the influence of radical thoughts. In face of challenges from radicalism, we should devote more energy to ascertain the social origins of the extremalization of individual thoughts from the domestic perspective rather than only focus on coping with the consequences. Wu Bingbing, Associate Professor of the School of Foreign Languages at Peking University started by analyzing the extremist organizations in the Middle East. According to Associate Prof. Wu, Islamic states on the one hand can serve as the spokesmen for sectarian interests and on the other hand possess the initial fledging shape of nations, so they are different from extremist organizations in nature. While coping with various extremist organizations in the Middle East, we should establish sound local political structures, develop the economy, and remove extremism from people’s thoughts and resorting to military means alone won’t work.

The last unit is “Refugee Crisis: Common Challenge?”. Kristin Sandvik, Research Fellow of the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO), reviewed major incidents about refugees in Europe in the past two years. According to her, the EU has seriously delayed its policies for coping with the problems of refugees. After some countries headed by German adjusted their policies, they still failed to accommodate such a large group of refugees. However, though the problems of refugees have led to various social and political conflicts inside Europe, it is not a political crisis of Europe in nature but a global humanitarian crisis. To solve the problems of refugees, on the one hand Europe should legalize the identity of refugees having crossed the border of Europe and on the other hand Europe should strengthen the building of multilateral institutions for the international refugee relief. According to Lei Shaohua, Research Fellow of IISS, PKU, China believes that refugee crisis has constituted potential threats to regional stability and China is now providing assistance to refugees through strengthening dialogues with European countries and donating money. But the mainstream public opinion of the Chinese society is still that the problems of refugees belong to Europe and Europe and the US should bear major responsibilities, so there is a limited policy space for the Chinese government to increase assistance to refugees. China should on the one hand encourage more young people to join international organizations and get involved in providing humanitarian assistance and on the other hand deepen the general public’s understanding of the problems of refugees.

Finally, Prof. Wang Jisi, President of IISS, and François Godement, Director of ECFR’s Asia & China Program, made speeches respectively. Godement opines that China is transforming its international positions when a kind of tension exists between the passive, risk-averse traditional diplomatic posture and the future-oriented active and enterprising ambition. According to him, it is positive and beneficial for China and Europe to listen to each other’s voices. Prof. Wang Jisi noted that during this dialogue, the European side suggested that China should take more actions on the Middle East issue and global affairs, but China is still not so familiar with the Middle East issue, so more researches are needed to be made. On the other hand, China is still limited to traditional diplomatic agendas. Though China cares about various questions raised by Europe, it is hard for China to respond by taking practical actions. It is hoped that China can deepen understanding of these issues through more constant dialogues with Europe.