The half-century mark of diplomatic ties between the European Union and the People's Republic of China has given way to a more sobering phase—one defined less by anniversary retrospection than by the search for a coherent European posture. Over the past three years in particular, the relationship has been reshaped by intensifying U.S.–China security competition, strategic instabilities across Eurasia and the Middle East, and mounting anxieties over supply chain dependencies, technological sovereignty, and industrial competitiveness. As the world contends with the consolidation of economic security as a governing principle—from Washington's industrial policy turn and Beijing's Fifteenth Five-Year Plan to Brussels' own derisking agenda—the EU–China relationship has entered a phase where the challenge is no longer to define the terms of engagement, but to live within their contradictions.

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This volume comes at a moment when the tripartite framing of China as a "partner for cooperation, an economic competitor, and a systemic rival" has begun to strain under the weight of events (European Council, 2023). Trade asymmetries have widened, with the EU recording a €359.8 billion goods deficit with China in 2025 and an 89% increase in imports since 2015, while questions of technological dependence, market access, and industrial overcapacity have moved to the centre of the policy debate. Against this backdrop, it is vital for the EU to move beyond declaratory postures and toward a more granular understanding of how ideological differences shape competition, interdependence, and the terms on which cooperation remains possible—drawing, where useful, on the lessons of China's own trajectory.

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Through this journal, we aim to present a diverse array of perspectives that not only reflect the depth and breadth of the EU–China relationship but also examine the firms, laboratories, universities, platforms, and farms where its future is being quietly negotiated.