Abstract

As China deepened its reforms and the EU completed its single market, the relationship became more structured. In the mid-1990s, the EU adopted two major policy papers on China, showing its intention to move from a purely economic partnership toward a more comprehensive one. At the same time, China was interested in strengthening its relations with Europe. After China joined the WTO in 2001, bilateral trade entered a true “golden era”. The two sides established a Comprehensive Partnership, which was upgraded to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership in 2003. Between 2001 and 2010, Chia-EU trade grew nearly fourfold, making the EU China’s largest trading partner and China the EU’s second-largest source of imports. But from 2010 onwards, things began to change. Economic interdependence remained deep, yet structural tensions increased. The paper aims at reconstructing the evolution of EU and China relationship on IPR and assess the evolution in the new digital era.