Abstract
China provides the largest contribution to global growth, which has sparked a rethinking of the other top world’s economies strategic dimensions. At the same time, the role played by the European Union (EU) remains open to numerous risks and challenges that could contribute to significantly lagging in development. China poses one of them. The EU should set a smart strategy to accommodate the Chinese long-term growth trajectory. The aim of this chapter is twofold. First, the authors examine the economic importance of China on the global stage and focus on the outstanding performance of China as a tourism superpower, both as origin as destination, in the context of China’s increasing role in the world’s industrial, trade and investment flows. This is one of the only studies that look at all these variables together, while focusing on tourism. Second, the authors narrow down the analysis to cover the bilateral economic relationships between China and the EU, focusing on the opportunities and challenges posed by the Belt and Road Initiative. We cover the period from 1990 to 2020 by means of qualitative exploratory approach. We conclude that there is great untapped growth potential for trade, investment, and tourism between China and the EU.
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Sertić, M.B., Časni, A.Č., Dumančić, K. (2023). China and the European Union: Inside the Economic Dynamics of a Challenging Relationship. In: Duarte, P.A.B., Leandro, F.J.B.S., Galán, E.M. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Globalization with Chinese Characteristics. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-6700-9_23
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