MERICS China Forecast 2022 event

2022 will be a critical year for EU-China relations: China’s unprecedented economic pressure on Lithuania, following the opening of a Taiwanese Representative Office in Vilnius last November, is putting the EU’s China policy to the test. Coordination is more challenging than usual as Germany’s new government is still settling in and France is holding presidential elections. What’s more, prospects for transatlantic China policy could be impacted by the looming mid-term elections in the US.

To anticipate what 2022 might have in store for us, MERICS once again hosted its annual China Forecast event  in collaboration with our media partner Handelsblatt. We provided a platform for exchanges on the most important current trends in China and what they entail for European counterparts in 2022.

MERICS invites you to rewatch this virtual conference on YouTube with a selected audience to assess critical China trends. Leading China specialists, public sector representatives as well as MERICS experts commentend and debated these assessments and their implications. The two panels focussed on China’s domestic politics and economy as well as on Europe-China relations in 2022. MERICS also used the opportunity to present findings from a survey among leading European experts and professionals and among a wider global audience on key developments in Europe-China relations.

Rewatch our virtual conference via the livestream on YouTube here.

MERICS Forecast 2022 Agenda
 

14:00     Welcome and introduction by Mikko Huotari, Executive Director, MERICS

14:05    Keynote
              Tobias Lindner, Minister of State, German Federal Foreign Office

14:15    Live survey

14:20     Panel 1 – China’s Road to the 20th Party Congress

• Jane Duckett, Director, Scottish Centre for China Research
• Vijay Gokhale, former Foreign Secretary of India
• Charles Parton, Senior Fellow, MERICS
• Jörg Wuttke, President of European Union Chamber of Commerce in China (EUCCC)

Moderator: Claudia Wessling, Director Communications and Publications, MERICS

15:00    Presentation of Forecast Survey results by Francesca Ghiretti, Analyst, MERICS

15:05      Panel 2 – Europe's China strategy for 2022 - economic and political priorities and challenges for EU-China relations

• Bonnie S. Glaser, Director Asia Program, German Marshall Fund of the US
• François Godement, Senior Advisor, Institut Montaigne
• Maria Linder, Head of Political Section, EU Delegation to China

Moderator: Torsten Riecke, International Correspondent, Handelsblatt

15:50     Closing remarks by Mikko Huotari
    
16:00    End of conference