US-EU relations: For the EU, the real ‘Middle Kingdom’ is still the US says US sociologist - by Salvatore Babones

The United States has always been the EU’s most important global partner. In the security sphere, of course, most EU countries are also members of NATO, in which the US is overwhelmingly the dominant party. In politics, too, the EU is closely aligned with the US, despite clashes over presidents and personalities.

People who think that Donald Trump changes everything might do well to remember the mass protests against George W. Bush in 2003 and Ronald Reagan twenty years earlier.

Economics is a different matter. In the economic sphere, many Europeans now look to China. After all, China has managed to maintain 8.5% compound average annual growth in GDP per capita for the last forty years.

So, when China’s President Xi Jinping announced in 2013 his One Belt, One Road (1B1R) initiative, designed to create an integrated Afro-Eurasian economy with China at its centre, many Europeans cheered.

Read more: For the EU, the real ‘Middle Kingdom’ is still the US – EURACTIV.com