Multi-faceted Sino-EU Ties

Andy Mok

In 2022, Europe stands at a historic juncture, and its decisions on political and economic partnerships will shape Europe and the world for decades to come. Moreover, sustainability increasingly and unavoidably underlies and shapes these political and economic choices. 

According to Nicolas Chapuis, the EU's ambassador in China, high-level dialogues between China and the EU are expected to occur in the coming weeks. "We need to talk, and we need to find where we can solve issues. For this, we need to have a shared account of facts which is missing today sometimes," he noted. But solving common issues requires more than just a shared account of facts, and William Shakespeare may offer important lessons on a better way forward. 

Shakespeare is viewed as making the most significant and most enduring contributions to the canon of literature in the English language. Given his importance, his life and work are widely studied and analysed, so we can better appreciate his work and understand why he is excellent.

A famous American movie is based on a line from one of Shakespeare's sonnets: "Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing." And like love, sustainability is a many-splendored thing. It is also a many-faceted thing. The UN World Commission on Environment and Development defines sustainability as "development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." But we usually view sustainability mainly through the lens of the environment because a basic assumption of sustainability is that resources are finite.

However, sustainability is a multi-splendored and multi-faceted thing. Besides the economic facet, which the United Nations explicitly recognizes, we must also consider the political, domestic, international, and human characteristics. Without solutions politically acceptable to domestic and global constituencies which can be sustained through transfers of political power, sustainability can't, well, be sustained for very long. 

Moreover, especially in the case of China and Europe, there are many different types of players at times pursuing other objectives, seeking to express different values, and holding different beliefs about how the world should work and how it actually does work. On the other hand, strategic empathy calls for imagining the hopes, dreams, desires, and fears of others. A chess player only has to foresee an opponent's moves. 

The gift of empathy is a purely human attribute. It doesn't come from our senses. It comes from our self-awareness. Most animals have keener senses than we do, but their strategies are limited to flight or fight because they lack the depth of self-awareness needed for genuine empathy. They cannot imagine the range and variety of desires we humans can. Good strategy begins with our ability to imagine the range and variety of desires in others that allows us to accomplish our goals.

Both China and Europe have recognised the multi-splendored nature of sustainability. But they have also recognised the complexity in its multiple facets and how it encompasses so many human differences. Only through the application of strategic empathy can these differences be bridged. What made Shakespeare great was not his verbal virtuosity but his ability to truly understand so many varied characters and facets of the human experience. By cultivating our empathy, we can also achieve a measure of greatness in moving forward in our global quest for sustainability and a stable and prosperous future for Europe, China, and the world.

- China.org.cn