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John Farnell retired from the European Commission last year, where he had been Director responsible for international affairs in the Enterprise and Industry Directorate-General. He was the EU Visiting Fellow at St Antony's College, Oxford, in 2011-2012. He is currently working on a book on the politics of EU-China economic relations and is a Senior Advisor to the EU-Asia Centre, Brussels.

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After ten years of the EU-China Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, has it made any difference? Alas, the partnership has mainly delivered more meetings. In 2006 the two sides opened negotiations for a Partnership and Cooperation Agreement which are still on-going. But there are reasons to be optimistic, even though a more robust economic partnership would require a major change of approach by both sides. The political relationship between these two giant economies remains cool, while the economic one has been stress-tested by the post-2008 Eurozone crisis.