EU–China Regional Policy Dialogue
Unpacking the Mechanisms of an Unlikely Policy Transfer
Musiałkowska, Ida; Dabrowski, Marcin DOI
10.1080/09668136.2018.1545899 Publication date
2018
Document Version Final published version Published in
Europe-Asia Studies
Citation (APA)
Musiałkowska, I., & Dabrowski, M. (2018). EU–China Regional Policy Dialogue: Unpacking the Mechanisms of an Unlikely Policy Transfer. Europe-Asia Studies, 70(10), 1689-1711.
https://doi.org/10.1080/09668136.2018.1545899 Important note
To cite this publication, please use the final published version (if applicable). Please check the document version above.
Copyright
Other than for strictly personal use, it is not permitted to download, forward or distribute the text or part of it, without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), unless the work is under an open content license such as Creative Commons. Takedown policy
Please contact us and provide details if you believe this document breaches copyrights. We will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim.
This work is downloaded from Delft University of Technology.
Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at
http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=ceas20
Europe-Asia Studies
ISSN: 0966-8136 (Print) 1465-3427 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ceas20
EU–China Regional Policy Dialogue: Unpacking the
Mechanisms of an Unlikely Policy Transfer
Ida Musiałkowska & Marcin Dąbrowski
To cite this article: Ida Musiałkowska & Marcin Dąbrowski (2018) EU–China Regional Policy Dialogue: Unpacking the Mechanisms of an Unlikely Policy Transfer, Europe-Asia Studies, 70:10, 1689-1711, DOI: 10.1080/09668136.2018.1545899
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/09668136.2018.1545899
© 2018 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
Published online: 24 Dec 2018.
Submit your article to this journal
Article views: 75
EU–China Regional Policy Dialogue:
Unpacking the Mechanisms of an Unlikely
Policy Transfer
IDA MUSIA
ŁKOWSKA & MARCIN DA˛BROWSKI
Abstract
This article investigates EU–China dialogue on regional policy, a puzzling exercise in policy transfer because such policy is by its nature inward-oriented and the intricacies of regional development imply uncertainty about its effects in different contexts. The article sheds light on the reasons of both sides for engaging in this unlikely policy learning effort and identifies its actors and mechanisms. It also critically assesses this process, stressing its one-way nature and the active role of the EU as a‘policy-sender’, in contrast to most policy transfer literature citing demands by the policy-recipient as the predominant reason to engage in such cooperation.
IN A GLOBALISING WORLD, WHERE MANY COUNTRIES AND REGIONS face very similar challenges, governments are often encouraged to go abroad to seek policy solutions, ideas and examples of ‘good practice’ that can be transferred to their domestic contexts to address policy issues effectively. At the same time, certain states or international organisations are keen to export their norms to third countries or organisations for pragmatic or normative reasons. Such processes of mutual transnational learning, the export/import of norms and the exchange of knowledge on policy approaches are embedded in international relations, diplomacy and para-diplomacy. There are many policy areas where transnational cooperation takes place and a plethora of governmental and non-state actors—regional authorities, subnational actors, civil servants, members of non-governmental organisations and representatives of businesses—have a stake in the transfer and diffusion of standards from their country or region of origin. While such policy exchanges and transfers appear to be increasingly commonplace, there is a shortage of studies on this topic, with particular reference to dynamics and mechanisms of policy transfer and learning between the European Union (EU) and third countries.
Existing studies on the external influence of EU policies tend to focus on the European neighbourhood (Lavenex 2008; B€orzel & Risse 2012; Langbein & B€orzel
2013); few have looked into such dynamics in third countries further afield. While some of the recent research has started addressing the issue of export of EU policy standards to international organisations and third countries beyond the wider European area
The authors would like to thank Dominic Stead for his comments on previous drafts of this article. # 2018 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way.
https://doi.org/10.1080/09668136.2018.1545899
(Falkner & M€uller 2013), the focus has so far been on policy areas that have a clear external dimension, such as trade, aviation, environment or agriculture. By contrast, there has been hardly any research on EU policy transfer to other regional organisations and third countries in the field of regional policy. EU regional policy appears to be internally oriented, as it is concerned with tackling the internal problem of regional development imbalances across the EU. As shall be demonstrated, however, it involves an increasing intensity of international dialogue and exchanges, particularly with the major emerging economies. To date we know very little on this topic. The few existing studies, for example, have dealt with the transfer of elements of EU regional policy to Mercosur (Musiałkowska2011), focused on the diffusion of EU norms in the European Union’s Mediterranean neighbourhood, using the macro-regionalisation narrative (Bialasiewicz et al.2013), compared selected aspects of regional policies in the EU and China (Dunford & Li2010; Dabinett & Rae 2013) or EU and ASEAN (Bafoil 2014), or simply described the impact of EU development assistance in China and the EU–China dialogue on regional policy (Kaminski 2009; Minarcikova 2016). None has, however, tackled this issue through the conceptual lens of policy transfer, understood, following Dolowitz and Marsh, as‘the process by which knowledge about policies, administrative arrangements, institutions and ideas in one political system (past or present) is used in the development of policies, administrative arrangements, institutions and ideas in another political system’ (Dolowitz & Marsh2000, p. 5).
This topic is all the more interesting when considering the frequent warnings against the pitfalls of learning from international ‘best practice’ in policy areas that are place- and context-dependent, such as regional development policy (Hospers 2006) and urban development (Bulkeley2006) or spatial planning (Stead2012). Nonetheless, policy transfer in regional policy between the EU and China has indeed been initiated by a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on regional policy cooperation, signed by the parties on 15 May 2006.1 The document provides the basis for sharing EU experiences in setting up and implementing regional policy, for instance with respect to multilevel governance and partnership issues. Subsequently, to turn the cooperation outlined in the MoU into reality, regional policy was included in a dialogue platform, the EU–China Policy Dialogues Support Facility (PDSF), established in 2007 to support exchange on a range of sectoral policies— regional development, energy, environment, agriculture, education, employment and enterprise—with the deepening of the bilateral strategic relationship as an overarching goal. One can thus ask what forms of policy transfer are possible in the case of regional policy. By analysing the dialogue between the EU and China in that policy area, we will shed some light on this under-researched issue, showing that this context warrants only‘soft’ forms of transfer based on inspiration and the learning of lessons.
The EU has accumulated knowledge on pursuing its own regional policy—EU cohesion policy—which is widely seen as a multidimensional and comprehensive policy implemented at an unprecedented scale and using a range of pioneering instruments and approaches; for example, the partnership principle, strategic programming, extensive evaluation, financial instruments. The European Commission is trying to establish
1
Memorandum of Understanding on Regional Policy Cooperation between the European Commission and the National Development and Reform Commission of the People’s Republic of China, 15 May 2006, available at: http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/sources/international/pdf/mou_china_en. pdf, accessed 22 October November 2018.
relations with third countries and stimulate mutual learning in the field of regional policy to find new solutions to current challenges; as in the case of the EU–Latin American dialogue on the EUROsociAL programme.2 China has a strong interest in pursuing dialogue in this particular area because some elements of EU cohesion policy seem to provide useful lessons for the Chinese context vis-a-vis the management of regional policy across levels of government and the delimitation of regions for policy purposes. In fact, China faces significant regional development disparities akin to the north–south and east–west disparities within the EU, and hence seeks to emulate some aspects of the EU cohesion policy framework to address this problem.
This article builds on the conceptual framework of policy transfer (Dolowitz & Marsh
2000) to unpack the process of policy transfer in regional policy between the EU and China. Who is involved in this process? What are the motivations of these actors? Where does this dialogue take place and what are the channels for transferring practices from one context to another? These are the questions on which we attempt to shed more light.
The next section will discuss the context and theoretical underpinnings of the study and describe the research methods used. Subsequently, we will examine our case study, the EU–China policy dialogue on regional policy. After setting the scene and explaining the rationale for this policy dialogue, we will explore the areas where exchange between the EU and China takes place and attempt to explain its mechanisms. The article will close with concluding remarks and some pointers towards further research on this topic.
Exploring the dynamics of EU rule transfer beyond its borders: towards an analytical framework
EU external governance, policy diffusion
The literature on EU external governance looks into the mechanisms and conditions for transfer of EU rules beyond its member states (Schimmelfennig 2007, 2015; Lavenex2008, 2012; Lavenex & Schimmelfennig 2009; Lavenex et al. 2009; B€orzel & Risse2012). The bulk of this literature concentrates on the countries where Europe has the strongest influence and leverage, namely, candidates for accession or those within the European neighbourhood, even without a clear membership perspective. There is a strand of literature on Europeanisation beyond the EU looking into the mechanisms and conditions for the transfer of EU rules and policies to these countries (Schimmelfennig & Sedelmeier 2004; Schimmelfennig 2007; Trauner 2009). In a nutshell, this literature tends to highlight that the EU is likely to project its norms outside its borders mainly through conditionality, the effectiveness of which varies considerably depending on a range of domestic characteristics and whether or not the countries have a credible prospect of EU membership. Thus, the influence of the EU tends to be strongest over candidate countries and there is only limited and patchy transfer of EU rules to countries that do not have a membership perspective (Schimmelfennig & Scholtz 2008; B€orzel & Pamuk 2012). Unsurprisingly, the capacity of the EU to project its standards and norms appears to decrease as the distance to the EU borders increases (Lavenex 2011; B€orzel & Risse2012; M€uller et al. 2014; Schimmelfennig 2015).
2
Interview with a senior official DG REGIO, Brussels, 25 March 2014; see also the EUROsociAL website, available at:http://eurosocial.eu/en, accessed 22 October 2018.
While the active export of EU rules to third countries through conditionality brings limited results beyond the candidate countries, one can still find some examples where EU standards or policy approaches are adopted by countries beyond the European neighbourhood. Such adoption takes place through the international diffusion of policy approaches, which can be defined as ‘a process by which policy innovations are communicated in the international system and adopted voluntarily by an increasing number of countries over time’ (Busch & J€orgens 2005, p. 895). This process is ‘driven by information flows rather than by hierarchical or collective decision-making’; thus it takes place without formal or contractual obligation to adopt a given policy solution and instead is ‘triggered by mechanisms of social learning, copying or mimetic emulation’ (Busch & J€orgens 2005, p. 895).
A growing number of studies investigates the international diffusion of EU policies. Alter studied the diffusion of the European approach to international courts, such as the European Court of Justice, and determined that it has served as a model for many regional integration organisations, albeit with a range of adaptations introduced (Alter 2012). Others have shown how ASEAN draws lessons from the experience of the EU and emulates some of its institutions, which results in a selective adoption of EU-style institutions, albeit without changing the pre-existing behavioural patterns among the actors operating within those new institutions (Jetschke & Murray 2012). While this mode of rule transfer through diffusion thus tends to be‘more indirect and driven by the demand for institutional solutions rather than active EU promotion of its models’ (B€orzel & Risse
2012, p. 196), such diffusion of European rules does not mean that the EU does not actively endeavour to promote the adoption of its policies beyond its borders.
When engaging with countries and regions farther afield, the EU often resorts to soft mechanisms of rule export and influence. For instance, the European Union itself and EU-oriented domestic actors have spurred the emulation of European institutional solutions for market-building objectives and dispute settlement in other regional organisations—Mercosur or Southern African Development Community—that had been looking for new solutions to address policy failures (Lenz 2012). In other cases there is evidence of the EU combining soft and hard mechanisms of influence on third countries. When it comes to aviation policy, for example, the EU uses conditionality (access to the EU market) to promote the adoption of schemes to tackle aviation emissions among the third countries, while also using persuasion and taking advantage of its reputation for technical expertise to promote the adoption of its safety norms in third countries invited to participate in the EU-sponsored technical assistance programmes (Da˛browski 2013).
In recent years, the EU has been increasingly involved in dialogue across different policy areas with a range of third countries, including Brazil, India, Japan, Russia, USA, Canada and China. This dialogue serves diplomatic interests, building wider economic and political cooperation as well as promoting the adoption of EU policy approaches and standards. The arrangements with each of these countries differ and focus on a range of industry sectors, including provisions for the harmonisation of economic and regulatory policies and wider cooperation across different policy areas. For example, policy cooperation with India as part of the strategic partnership includes climate change, security, research and development, and cooperation in specific industry sectors such as pharmaceuticals and biotech, automotive, food and space technologies.3
3
For more information on the EU–India partnership see the website of the Delegation of the European Union to India and Bhutan, available at:http://eeas.europa.eu/india/index_en.htm, accessed 22 October 2018.0
Another example is the EU–China dialogue, which started in the mid-1990s and developed rapidly in depth and scope to become a strategic partnership (Scott2007), that is a longer term cooperation entailing relationships in several areas of policy. As Algieri argues, ‘EU–China relations have reached a highly institutionalized and interwoven level of cooperation’ (Algieri 2002, p. 76), with both sides recognising their relationship as a strategic partnership in 2003 (Geeraerts 2013) and with China becoming the EU’s second biggest trading partner in 2004 (Casarini2006). Since then, the partnership has continued to develop, with increasing policy dialogue across different policy areas and joint statements made on annual Sino–European summits. While a potentially important geopolitical development, critics have argued that this cooperation focuses pragmatically on economic and trade affairs, and that while the annual statements have multiplied commitments to dialogues and exchanges, they remain vague and do not clearly specify common interests (Holslag2011)4but rather only the individual interests of each party (Stepan & Ostermann
2011). We also know very little about whether this dialogue has led to any substantive transfer of knowledge or practices in the policy fields covered. The existing studies (Barbe et al. 2009; Dimitrova & Dragneva 2009; Knill & Tosun 2009; M€uller et al. 2014) tend to focus on the EU’s influence in the policy areas that are externally oriented, that have clear implications for third countries, and that have an explicit external dimension or involve a strategy of diffusion through engagement in international organisations, for example, in areas of security, energy, trade, agriculture, financial regulation, migration, air transport and environment. There has been hardly any research to date that has investigated the transfer of EU rules and practices to third countries in policy areas that are internally oriented and focus on domestic actors and processes.
Analytical framework of policy transfer from the EU to third countries
There are many theoretical approaches to study how policies‘travel’—policy convergence, isomorphist policy transfer, policy diffusion or policy export. Here, however, we focus on the concept of policy transfer, as defined by Dolowitz and Marsh (2000, p. 5). We found this concept to be the best suited to this case in light of the early stage of EU–China cooperation in the field of regional policy, which precludes an examination of the patterns of adoption of foreign rules and practices. The choice of policy transfer as an analytical lens allows for concentrating on the process of rule transfer itself, while policy diffusion or export require analysis over the longer term to assess outcomes achieved in order to verify whether and how adoption of foreign rules has taken place in the recipient country. Policy transfer stresses the intangible elements and results of mutual learning. Therefore, it refers here not as much to the actual adoption of foreign policy approaches or practices, but rather to knowledge-exchange activities aiming at the learning of lessons, irrespective of whether they result in the actual adoption of practices or not.
To answer the research questions posed in the introduction, we apply a modified analytical scheme proposed by Dolowitz and Marsh (2000) and seek to identify the principal motivations for policy transfer between the EU and China, the main actors involved, the scope and degree of transfer, what mechanisms facilitate the process and the direction of this process. Dolowitz and Marsh (2000) concentrate on the motivation
of policy transfer recipients, whereas our study also considers the motivations of policy ‘senders’, which pursue their own goals through policy transfer activities (seeTable 1). Research methods
Following the methods of analysing policy transfer suggested by Evans (2004) and Peck and Theodore (2012), we applied a combination of techniques. The analysis of secondary data (reports, official documents, legislation) provided the core of the empirical material, allowing for tracing the process of transfer, exploring its venues, channels and tools as well as its officially stated goals. This was complemented by six semi-structured interviews with senior EU and Chinese officials (European Commission’s DG REGIO, Development Research Centre of the State Council, National Development and Reform Commission, China Academy of Urban Planning and Design) and participant observation (as neutral observers) at the EU–China high-level seminars on regional policy in 2011 and 2013, taking place in Brussels, as well as at other conferences on EU–China relations in Beijing (2012) and Bruges (2013), with the participation of the European and Chinese officials involved in the regional policy dialogue and other stakeholders from academia, business and think tanks. These additional methods allowed for cross-checking the findings from secondary data. Interviews were particularly useful in gathering insights into the perceptions, motives and priorities of actors on both sides, the ‘behind the scenes’ processes, the degree of transfer and the challenges that this collaboration entailed.
The key limitation of this methodology was the relatively small sample of interviewees, given the limited availability and accessibility of the key stakeholders operating at high levels of national and regional government. Another notable and already mentioned limitation of this methodology is that it was unable to capture the actual effects of the EU–China dialogues on regional policy practice. Thus, we focused on the process of interaction and exchange instead.
Regional policy: an unlikely case for policy transfer
In the EU context, regional policy can be considered as the flagship policy of the Union, not least in budgetary terms, with roughly one third of its budget allocated to it.5
TABLE 1
ANALYTICALFRAMEWORK OFPOLICYTRANSFER
Motivation Reasons for (voluntary) engagement in transfer of both ‘sender’ and ‘recipient’
Actors Institutions; elected officials; bureaucrats and civil servants (national, regional, local); businesses; consultants; think tanks; academic experts
Degree/form of transfer Copying; emulation; adaptation; inspiration; mixtures of the above
Scope/subject Policies (goals, content, instruments); programmes; implementation; negative lessons
Activities Media; reports; conferences; meetings/visits; statements Direction of transfer One-way; two-way
Source: Adapted from Dolowitz and Marsh (2000).
5
For more information please see the EU budget website of the European Commission, available at: http://ec.europa.eu/budget/index_en.cfm, accessed 22 October 2018.
However, it is also of vital importance for the EU because of its normative role as an expression of European solidarity and as one of the tools for deepening the European integration process, namely by reducing regional disparities that hamper the operation of the EU’s common market.6 Regions with a Gross Domestic Product per capita below 75% of the EU average (labelled ‘less-developed’) are eligible for support through the Structural Funds provision. Moreover, poorer countries—those with a Gross National Income (GNI) per capita lower than 90% of the average GNI per capita for all member states—are eligible for additional funding from the Cohesion Fund.
Reaching EU objectives and the use of financial instruments is mandated in the EU primary law (Treaty on the Functioning of the EU, title XVIII, Articles 174–79) and the main regulations on the Structural Funds (Regulation (EU) No 1303/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 17 December 2013, OJ L 347).7 The core goal of EU regional policy is reducing the disparities in economic, social and, recently, territorial and spatial development across the European regions through innovative instruments and carefully targeted grants or preferential loans for public investment at the national and subnational levels. From the 2007–2013 period, EU cohesion policy was reoriented to encompass the wider goal of promoting economic growth and innovation and creating jobs in line with the EU’s strategic priorities. What makes the policy distinctive is the set of principles that govern its implementation, such as the partnership principle, which requires close collaboration by actors at all levels of government and the inclusion of non-state actors in decision-making, the cornerstone of the EU’s multilevel governance (Marks 1993; Bache 2008). Additionally, the pioneering use of a range of practices such as cross-border cooperation, macro-regional strategies, financial instruments and the extensive evaluation of the policy implementation and its results.
Concerning policy management and governance, EU regional policy is built around a set of distinctive principles and a system of interrelations between the actors involved in its implementation across different scales. The principles of EU regional policy include solidarity, subsidiarity, programming (that is, funding of multi-annual national or regional programmes aligned on EU objectives and priorities), concentration of support on specific territories, multi-annual financial planning of the EU budget, and partnership. Those principles have influenced the enhanced modes of cooperation and governance present in the contemporary public sphere such as multilevel governance, network cooperation based on the horizontal and vertical cooperation or partnership of European, national, regional and local authorities in the process of programming and implementing the regional policy. Public funding from the EU budget co-finances operations in member states and their regions, which also impels the member states to learn the EU policy-making procedures in that particular area. The policy cycle is based on the
6
For an in-depth analysis of the rationale for and the role of the policy see Bachtler et al. (2013), Piattoni and Polverari (2016).
7
OJ L 347, Regulation (EU) No 1303/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 17 December 2013 lays down common provisions for the European Regional Development Fund, the European Social Fund, the Cohesion Fund, the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development, and the European Maritime and Fisheries Fund. It also lays down the general provisions for the European Regional Development Fund, the European Social Fund, the Cohesion Fund, and the European Maritime and Fisheries Fund, repealing Council Regulation (EC) No 1083/2006, 20 December 2013, pp. 320–469, available at: http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/ALL/?uri¼CELEX%3A32013R1303, accessed 12 May 2016.
Project Cycle Management methodology, which stresses the careful planning of interventions with clear responses to the problems identified and monitoring of policy implementation together with evaluation of cost/effect relations in terms of public spending. This inward-oriented policy has also an external dimension, as there is strong interest from the EU’s external partners to learn from it and emulate some of its features, hence creating scope for policy dialogue and the potential for the international diffusion of EU cohesion policy rules and elements.
By contrast, following the liberalisation of the Chinese economy since the reforms of Deng Xiaoping, economic development has soared and millions of people have been lifted out of poverty. However, at the same time, this process exacerbated disparities in economic development across and within the Chinese provinces, particularly between the rapidly urbanising coastal areas in the east and south, and rural inland areas that are lagging behind and depopulating. The emergence of such disparities has led to a succession of policies aimed at promoting more harmonious and sustainable development (Dunford & Bonschab2013).
Chinese economic policy-making can be analysed by looking at three different periods (Demurger et al. 2002; Dunford & Bonschab 2013). The first, from 1949 to 1978, was characterised by a balanced development strategy based on a planned economy. An unbalanced development strategy characterised the second period (from 1978 to the mid-1990s), which saw the liberalisation and opening of the Chinese economy and unprecedented economic development. The key policy instruments used were special economic zones, open economic zones and other strategies promoting development of the coastal economic hubs (such as the 1987 Economic Development Strategy for Coastal Areas), with a focus on competitiveness and little concern for regional disparities. This period saw a dramatic widening of the development gap between the east and central–western China (Dunford & Li2010; Lu & Deng2013).
The period from the mid-1990s to the present has seen a renewed focus on balancing the pattern of development and featured a coordinated and more harmonious development strategy. The emphasis on the need to reduce regional disparities first appeared in the Ninth Five-Year Plan (1995–2000), followed by the Western Development Strategy in 1999, which boosted the development of western China (Lu & Deng 2013). The Tenth and Eleventh Five-Year Plans (2000–2005, 2005–2010) continued this shift, with a focus on coordinated development and the design of specific programmes for the four specific types of regions designated in 2006. This designation took into account environmental characteristics, development density and resource endowment, producing the four categories ‘unsuitable for development’, ‘not very suitable for development’, ‘suitable for development’ and ‘towns and cities’. In 2011, the Chinese government introduced a policy to combat poverty and underdevelopment in the 2011–2020 period by targeting for special support 14 regions designated as most economically lagging and/or remote areas (so-called bloc areas or concentrated contiguous poor areas with special difficulties). The support focused on fundamental needs such as food and clothing and the provision of basic health, education and housing. In terms of funding, Chinese regional policy includes a variety of tools: direct state investment, subsidies to subnational governments to support investment in infrastructural projects and ‘soft’ measures (education, poverty reduction, support for ethnic minorities), loans, and fiscal incentives (DG REGIO2011).
The difficulties and risks associated with the import of regional policy practices from abroad
Although comparison between two very different economic, political and institutional contexts may seem questionable—after all, we are comparing a multilevel and unique regional integration organisation with a sprawling authoritarian state—the analytical focus of this article is ultimately not misplaced. If one considers the EU as a territorial whole, its scale becomes more comparable to that of China. What is more, both the EU and China are characterised by marked economic and cultural differences across their territories. One can also remark that the objectives of China’s regional policy have over time moved close to those of the EU cohesion policy.8 It is this proximity of goals that has provided the rationale for EU–China cooperation in regional policy.
However, from a theoretical viewpoint, the EU–China dialogue studied here may seem surprising, as the characteristics of regional policy would indicate that an international policy transfer in this field is unlikely. Richard Rose advanced a series of hypotheses for conditions favourable to policy transfer, suggesting that it is more likely when addressing a problem that can be clearly linked to a policy solution; when dealing with policies with single goals and few potential side-effects; when clear information about how the policy operates in other locations is available; and when there are easily predictable outcomes (Rose 1993, pp. 132–34). Regional policy arguably does not fulfil any of those conditions and thus one can hardly expect a transfer to take place in this area. EU cohesion policy has multiple goals: economic, social and territorial cohesion while achieving the EU’s strategic goals of smart, sustainable and inclusive growth.9 It addresses a complex problem of uneven regional development for which there is no simple solution, as evidenced by the continuing gap between the European Union’s lagging and leading regions despite 25 years of massive investment as part of EU cohesion policy in a range of areas (infrastructure, human resources, education, innovation, cross-border cooperation). The interventions as part of EU cohesion policy may produce side-effects, such as the development of dependency on EU grants among local authorities or over-investment in infrastructure, increased ‘red tape’ and bureaucratic burdens for beneficiaries. Moreover, it has been notoriously difficult to assess the contribution of regional policy to economic growth and development in targeted regions, since its outcomes are extremely difficult to predict given that EU-funded programmes are only one of a variety of factors that influence the trajectories of regional development, the others being domestic policies and administrative structures, global economic trends and external shocks, environmental phenomena, and innovation, for example. In addition, what makes policy transfer between the EU and China challenging and potentially perilous is the fact that the wider governance and political systems in both entities are so radically different. Further major differences include the size and the delimitation of territories, the magnitude of development challenges, legal systems and societal values. There is therefore a significant risk of policy failure if
8
For a comparative overview of the EU’s and China’s regional policies and regional development contexts see European Commission (2011).
9
See EUROPE 2020. A Strategy for Smart, Sustainable and Inclusive Growth, available at:https:// eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/en/ALL/?uri¼CELEX%3A52010DC2020, accessed 22 October 2018.
policy approaches are simply copied without a careful consideration of the need to adapt them to local conditions (Dolowitz & Marsh2000).
There are multiple reasons why a country might adopt a certain policy model that has proved successful elsewhere. First, it seeks an effective solution to its domestic policy problems or wants to replace unproductive policies (Rose 1991; Dolowitz & Marsh
2000). Second, domestic actors may be persuaded by external or internal actors (norm entrepreneurs) to import certain policy solutions from abroad (Finnemore & Sikkink 1998). Finally, governing elites may be inclined to adopt a widely used standard in order to enhance their legitimacy and comply with international pressures for conformity with what it is considered normatively desirable and appropriate behaviour (Finnemore & Sikkink 1998; Busch & J€orgens 2005). Policy transfer from developed to developing countries/organisations can be coerced, through conditionalities imposed by a supranational organisation or treaty, or voluntary. In the latter case, the reasons for the transfer can be political considerations, pragmatism, the reputation for efficiency of a given policy in a particular country, or the legitimisation of policy aims and approaches (Evans 2004). There are numerous ‘transfer actors’—civil servants, policy-makers, consultants/experts, non-governmental actors—as well as different aspects of a policy that can be subject to transfer, from general approaches or the administrative structures underpinning a policy to a concrete instrument. Thus, in the case of regional policy, the subjects of transfer could include, for instance, aspects of multilevel governance, the whole policy cycle or a cycle phase, strategic management approaches or funding instruments. Finally, one can distinguish a range of forms of policy transfer from‘soft’ to‘hard’, which reflect the extent of transfer. These can include inspiration and lesson-learning (a policy used elsewhere is a broad inspiration and source of lessons for domestic policy change), synthesis (elements of policies used elsewhere are combined with own goals and instruments to develop a new policy), adaptation (importing elements of a policy while adapting them to the domestic circumstances) or wholesale duplication, which occurs only in cases of transfer between entities within the same political system (Rose 1991, 1993; Dolowitz & Marsh2000; Evans2004).
In sum, considering the insights from the policy transfer literature, the fact that the transfer activities in the area of regional policy between the EU and China are taking place at all can be considered startling, leading to questions about the reasons on both sides for engaging in this dialogue. Furthermore, drawing on the discussion above, one can also expect that‘soft’ forms of transfer would predominate in the case of transfer in the field of regional policy, given the complexity of this policy and the uncertainties concerning its effects and outcomes across different places and contexts. The case study presented in the subsequent sections of the article will shed more light on this issue and verify these expectations.
Unpacking EU–China dialogue on regional policy Why dialogue on regional policy?
Why was EU–China dialogue launched in a policy field that lacks an obvious external dimension? From the EU point of view, this dialogue offers two kinds of benefits. First, it should be seen as part of wider diplomatic efforts to strengthen the strategic
partnership with China by adding yet another area of collaboration and exchange.10The growing attractiveness of China as a market for European investors and trade, as well as its increasing role in world politics, has encouraged the EU to develop strong bilateral ties (Scott 2007, p. 40). The EU–China dialogue on regional policy should hence be set against the background of strategic cooperation between those two actors that has been ongoing since the mid-1990s, becoming highly institutionalised over time (Algieri2002, p. 65).
Second, there are specific potential benefits for the EU’s own regional policy: such dialogue is an opportunity to learn from a different model of socio-economic development and the policy experience of a third country.11 As was highlighted by Lu and Deng (2013), Chinese policies to stimulate economic development in western China remain mainly ‘spatially blind’, that is, they are not tailored to the specific local conditions of the target areas. In this regard, EU cohesion policy could provide a model (Lu & Deng 2013). Moreover, EU cohesion policy underwent a major reform for the 2014–2020 policy cycle, against the background of pressures to deliver more tangible results and ‘do more with less’ in an era of austerity (OJ L 347). Moreover, despite the major cultural and institutional differences, there are similarities between the EU and China in terms of the challenges of regional disparities. These include a growing emphasis on functional areas; EU Convergence region designation (used to define less developed regions, which receive the bulk of EU cohesion funding) and ‘bloc areas’ in China; a focus on supporting lagging regions while continuing investment in the competitiveness of growth poles; the promotion of horizontal cooperation at the subnational level; and a concern with economic slowdown. As we will argue below, however, there is little evidence of actual learning from this dialogue; in particular, no evidence of the EU learning from China in this process.
There also are normative reasons behind EU engagement in this dialogue with China, related to the notion of ‘normative power’, as opposed to economic or military power, referring to the ability to affect other countries’ ideologies, opinions or perceptions of what is ‘normal’ (Manners 2002). The EU has an overarching ambition to project its norms beyond its borders by promoting its policies internationally and ‘inspiring’ third countries, which it also strives to fulfil in the field of regional policy (DG REGIO
2009). More pragmatically, as noted in our interviews with DG REGIO officials, engaging in exchanges and study visits and including participants from the corporate world, subnational authorities and academia in this dialogue creates opportunities to promote trade links, foreign investment, and scientific and business-orientated cooperation.
From the point of view of China, similar diplomatic reasons for dialogue apply. The aspiring world power seeks to strengthen its ties with the EU, which, despite the current economic and political difficulties that it faces, remains a major global actor. European solutions, in the opinion of Chinese policy-makers, are more comprehensive and affordable than other international proposals.12 At the same time, China considers the
10
Interview with a senior DG REGIO official, Beijing, 25 June 2012.
11Interview with a senior DG REGIO official, Beijing, 25 June 2012. 12
Speech by Huang Yiyang, Mission of the People’s Republic of China to the EU, EU–China Soft Diplomacy Conference, College of Europe and the Committee of Regions, Brussels, 19 April 2013.
EU’s experience with cohesion policy spanning more than two decades as a valuable source of lessons. According to the leaders of the Chinese National Reform and Development Commission, China is keen to learn from the EU’s research and practical experience.13 Our interviews indicate that the EU regional policy framework is positively perceived by Chinese officials as a source of good practices, which may guide future domestic policy reform.14 European know-how provided a point of reference for the reforms in the wake of the Twelfth Five-Year Plan (2011–2015) that introduced a greater focus on reducing regional disparities, an improved legal framework for coordination and multilevel governance, performance measurement requirements, and policies tackling urban development and promoting urban–rural linkages and innovation.
Areas of dialogue on regional policy
Regional policy may be analysed by taking into exclusive consideration the paradigms of development based on economic theories, or broaden it to include policy management or governance, which can all be considered as potential sources of policy transfer. The overall approach of EU regional policy, which was grounded in the 1988 reform of the Structural Funds and expanded in a string of reforms from the 1990s up to the present day, is broadly in line with the regional policy paradigm promoted by the Organisation for Economic and Co-operation Development (OECD) in which regional growth is supported by investment at the regional scale not only in infrastructure but also in the strengthening of the environment for innovation and in the development of human capital. According to this approach, regional economic growth should be based on the balanced development of conditions necessary for economic growth that interact with each other. While the majority of the OECD Member States—developed and some developing ones—are reforming in that direction, the implementation of such a model across different institutional settings can be challenging (OECD2009).
The European Commission (DG REGIO) has concluded Memoranda of Understanding on Regional Policy Cooperation with China, Russia, Brazil, Ukraine, South Africa, Moldova, Georgia, Argentina and other countries which are all confronted with wide regional disparities and major challenges in terms of coordinating the different levels of government, and ensuring that decentralisation can be achieved without compromising efficiency (Musiałkowska2011).15
As we mentioned above, China is facing considerable regional development disparities, as well as more general income disparities, particularly in relation to the urban–rural divide (Dunford & Li 2010; Wang 2010). Recognising that the European Union also faces the challenge of increasing regional disparities, the 2006 EU–China MoU stressed balanced development and regional policy as key areas on which both
13See the summary of the Sixth EU–China high-level seminar on regional policy, available at:http://
ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/cooperate/international/doc/6eu_china.doc, accessed 25 September 2013.
14Interview with senior official, Development Research Centre of the State Council, Beijing, 25
June 2012. Comments of EU and People’s Republic of China officials, Huang Chengwei, Director-General National Training Centre for Officials in Poor Areas, China, Sixth EU–China High-level Seminar on Regional policy, Brussels, 13 October 2011; interview with senior DG REGIO official, Brussels, 19 April 2013.
15
For more see‘Inspiring Non-EU Countries’, European Commission, available at:http://ec.europa. eu/regional_policy/cooperate/international/index_en.cfm, accessed 22 October 2018.
sides should share information and experience. The provisions of MoU were then implemented under the regional policy section of the PDSF, focusing on issues such as the definition and economic classification of regions; the governance and coordination of regional policy; and the role of regional policy in improving competitiveness (see Table 2). In the next section we will examine the extent and ways in which the instruments and initiatives launched under the PDSF have facilitated policy transfer.
Examining the instruments and forms of policy transfer
The key instrument for interactions in the field of regional policy is the EU–China Policy Dialogues Support Facility (PDSF), initiated in 2007, which provides a platform for mutual exchange and learning on a broad range of key sectors and issues, with the overarching goal of reinforcing policy coordination and strategic relations between China and the EU. The areas of dialogue covered by the EU–China PDSF apart from regional policy include education and culture, environment, energy, employment and social affairs, information society public health, food safety, and agriculture. In practice, PDSF involves mainly the organisation of sectoral cooperation events between the relevant European Commission Directorates-General or the European External Action Service and the corresponding Chinese ministries or state agencies, in order to exchange expertise, explore avenues for further collaboration, and facilitate the adoption of EU models and best practice in China. Thus, besides the mutual benefits in terms of deepening the strategic relationship and policy learning, the EU can use the PDSF to promote the diffusion of its norms and approaches to China, in line with its ambition to ‘inspire’ non-EU countries with its policies (DG REGIO2009).16 China can use it to facilitate the informed adoption of those aspects of EU policy practices that can be transferred to the Chinese context and improve domestic policies.
The initiatives focused on regional policy undertaken as part of the PDSF include a joint report by Chinese and EU experts on regional policy issues (Meadows2010; Wang2010), training activities for officials dealing with regional policy, information sessions on EU cohesion policy and its framework for Chinese officials, and a series of high-level policy seminars. We will take a closer look at each of these initiatives from the perspective of policy transfer, identifying the reasons for the transfer, the actors involved, the degree/forms of transfer and its scope/subject in terms of specific aspects of regional policy.
Mutual inspiration and learning to inform regional policy reform processes: EU–China Cooperative Research Activity
One of the most tangible effects of the EU–China policy dialogue on regional policy has been joint research on regional policy-making issues, covering selected issues of relevance for both parties in regional policy and development. The main reason for this joint endeavour was to exchange practical experiences and knowledge in the wake of the reform of regional policies both in China and the EU after the 2008 crisis. Thus, the aim of the study was to deliver European experiences to Chinese authorities in the context of the preparation of the Twelfth Five-Year Plan and to offer EU officials insights from
16
See ‘EU–China Cooperation on Regional Policy’, DG REGIO, available at: http://ec.europa.eu/ regional_policy/cooperate/international/china_en.cfm, accessed 22 October 2018.
TABLE 2 R EASONS ,A IMS AND I NSTRUMENTS OF C OOPERATION BETWEEN EU AND C HINA ON R EGIONAL P OLICY Reasons and aims of cooperation Instruments of policy transfer and cooperation Reasons for cooperation between EU and third parties Memorandum of Understanding EU –China 15 May 2006 Addendum to the Memorandum of Understanding 11 May 2009 EU –China Policy Dialogues Support Facility Reasons -the importance of crucial economic framework conditions -a need for tailored strategies with an appropriate policy mix -the importance of stable budgets and coherent programming -the need for cross-border cooperation -strong focus on agglomeration economies and urbanism -the importance and role of small and medium sized towns and local centres -strengthening of local employment and capacity building initiatives -strengthening of institutional support (including strong institutional leadership, sound political judgment, robust economic analysis and policy-planning, technical expertise to guide project managers in the ‘field ’ plus strong inter-institutional co-ordination; technical assistance and capacity building, such as through twinning/ JASPERS — Joint Assistance to Support Projects in Regions) -the importance of introducing multilevel governance Aims -to achieve balanced development and regional policy aims -to promote mutual understanding and bilateral cooperation in the field of regional policy to strengthen the exchange of information on the policy ’s contribution to growth, competitiveness and employment -to share EU experience on: governance and partnership and other areas (MoU) -to establish strategic cooperation in the field of innovation and the formation of regional clusters (Addendum) Policy transfer instruments -E U –China Cooperative Research Activity 2008 –2010: classification of regions, governance and coordination of regional policy, the role of regional policy in improving competitiveness, sustainable development and urban and rural development -CETREGIO (Chinese European Training on Regional Policy) and information sessions, 2010 –2011: regional disparities, regional policy and legislation (governance), statistical information systems, territorial cohesion and urban –rural linkages, innovation and clusters policies -high-level seminars on regional policy, 2006 –2015: all of the above areas covered -decentralised cooperation between subnational authorities: innovation, sustainable urban development, urban regeneration, trade and investment Source: Compiled by authors based on ‘Memorandum of Understanding on Regional Policy Cooperation between the European Commission and the National Development and Reform Commission of the People ’s Republic of China ’, 2006, available at: http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/sources/international/pdf/mou_china_en.pdf, accessed 4 November 2015; ‘Addendum to The Memorandum of Understanding on Regional Policy Co-Operation Established between the European Commission and the National Development and Reform Commission of The People ’s Republic of China ’, 2009, available at: http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/sources/international/pdf/china_addendum_ 2009.pdf, accessed 4 November 2015; ‘EU –China ’, D G REGIO, European Commission, available at: http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/pl/policy/cooperation/international/ china/ , accessed 19 October 2018.
Chinese regional policy that could potentially inform the preparations for the reform of EU cohesion policy in the 2014–2020 policy cycle. That said, the study was ‘not intended to provide tailor-made solutions for Chinese or European reality, but rather to offer experts a source of reference when developing future regional policy measures’ (DG REGIO 2011, p. 3). Additionally, it is safe to assume political and diplomatic reasons for this research collaboration, which should be seen against the background of wider efforts to strengthen the strategic partnership between China and the EU.
The actors involved in this initiative included the European Commission’s DG REGIO and the Chinese National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), as well as a series of European and Chinese teams of regional policy experts. The EU research team was more diverse and included DG REGIO’s own experts, representatives of the URBACT programme, a mix of national and subnational governments, non-government organisations, and a range of academics from the United Kingdom, Belgium and Austria. The Chinese research team included experts from the NDRC, the Development Research Centre of the State Council and the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
This‘EU–China Cooperative Research Activity’ concentrated on the following areas: the definition and economic classification of regions; the governance and coordination of regional policy; and the role of regional policy in improving competitiveness, sustainable development, and urban and rural development. The activity included a series of workshops, seminars, study visits to Europe and China in 2008, and face-to-face collaboration between Chinese and European experts. The results of the research were published in 2010 in two extensive reports, one by the EU experts and one by the Chinese experts. The former discusses various aspects of EU cohesion policy that may be relevant for Chinese policy-makers (Meadows2010), while the latter concentrates on Chinese developmental challenges and presents a detailed overview of policies implemented to address them (Wang 2010). Both reports include examples of best practice in the above subject areas both in China and the EU, with the aim of offering practical lessons for policy-makers.
Two forms of policy transfer can be identified in this case. First, the inspiration to develop new policies through dialogue and the exchange of ideas, as frequently highlighted by the European Commission’s communications on the external dimension of EU cohesion policy and the international dialogue in this field (DG REGIO 2009). Second, the ‘EU–China Cooperative Research Activity’ also clearly involves a two-way learning process, with each party drawing on the experience of other countries and/or organisations for the purpose of reforming their own regional policies.
One-way traffic: Chinese European Training on Regional Policy
Chinese European Training on Regional Policy (CETREGIO) and a range of information sessions were the second instrument of dialogue under the PDSF. CETREGIO, implemented by the Academy of European Law (ERA) on behalf of DG REGIO in 2010, was a‘crash course’ on EU cohesion policy offered to a number of Chinese officials. The course focused on regional disparities (including a focus on the classification of regional needs), multilevel governance and statistical information systems (ESPON, INSPIRE). It was designed as a combination of interactive classroom teaching delivered by EU officials and experts, and field visits with case studies. The explicitly stated purpose of this instrument was to deliver
European experiences to Chinese experts during the preparation of the Twelfth Five-Year Plan; that is, to offer them a source of ideas and know-how for domestic policy reform.17
In 2011, the Deutsche Gesellschaft f€ur Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) organised two additional information sessions to deal with the themes outlined in the Addendum to the MoU, namely territorial cohesion and urban–rural linkages (GIZ 2011a), as well as innovation and cluster policies (GIZ 2011b). The sessions’ format and the main rationale were similar to that of CETREGIO. However, these sessions were organised within the framework of the European Parliament’s pilot project to enhance regional and local cooperation by promoting EU regional policy on a global scale. Consequently, one may argue that an additional reason for the EU to engage in this activity was the legitimisation of EU cohesion policy through international visibility and exchange. The actors involved on the EU side included DG REGIO, ERA, GIZ, and a range of experts from academia and practitioners dealing with regional policy-making. The Chinese participants included representatives of the NDRC, municipal authorities, representatives of provincial development and reform commissions, and a range of other governmental and business actors. These activities, again, involved two forms of policy transfer: inspiration and lesson-learning. However, unlike in the case of the joint research activity, here the learning process involved a one-way transfer from the EU to Chinese officials to feed into the preparations of policies for the next five-year plan. Facilitating exchanges among the key actors of regional policy: EU–China high-level seminars on regional policy
The PDSF also includes high-level seminars organised both in Europe and China. Ten seminars were held in Europe and China between 2006 and 2015. In 2017 a new programme has been implemented as a part of the actions under the International Urban Cooperation programme18 and new bilateral declarations between the European and Chinese cities are planned to be signed in 2018.19These events brought together EU and Chinese officials and experts to discuss regional policy issues.20 They took the form of lectures delivered by European and Chinese experts followed by debates. The thematic scope of the seminars was very broad, including topics such as the classification of regions in China and the EU, governance mechanisms, regional disparities and various aspects of regional and urban development policies, nurturing innovation in clusters, inter-regional cooperation, and mitigating climate change. The actors involved included DG REGIO, URBACT and a range of regional officials, agencies, experts and scholars on the EU side; and the NDRC, provincial
17‘Activity 18: CETREGIO Chinese European Training on Regional Policy. Regional Disparities,
Regional Legislation and Statistical Information Systems in Europe, 16–31 July 2010. Summary Report. Official Activity within the EU–China Regional Policy Dialogue’, Academy of European Law (ERA), available at: http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/sources/international/pdf/china_training_cet2010.pdf, accessed 28 November 2018.
18See:http://www.iuc.eu/, accessed 24 October 2018. 19
‘See: ‘EU–China Regional Policy Dialogue. VII High-Level Meeting, Guangzhou. Joint Statement of Conclusions’, signed on 21 December 2012, available at: http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/sources/ cooperate/international/pdf/china_seminar_7_concl_en.pdf, accessed 6 November 2018; ‘EU–China’, DG REGIO, European Commission, available at: http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/pl/policy/cooperation/ international/china/, accessed 19 October 2018.
20For more information on the seminars see: ‘EU–China’, DG REGIO, European Commission,
available at: http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/pl/policy/cooperation/international/china/, accessed 19 October 2018
development and reform commissions, local authorities, regional agencies, businesses and academics on the Chinese side.
The reasons behind the organisation of these events are similar to those of the joint research activity. On the one hand, these seminars were meant to encourage the exchange of experience for the purpose of domestic policy reforms, serving at the same time wider political and diplomatic aims. Concerning the forms of transfer in this case, again, they are similar to those observed in the case of joint research: inspiration and mutual lesson-learning to inform domestic policy-makers involved in regional policy reform. It is difficult to find concrete evidence of the outcomes of these forms of policy transfer; however, our interviews with EU and Chinese officials indicated that the seminars did play a role in the shaping of the Chinese approach to regional classification and designation of the ‘bloc areas’, which to some extent was inspired by the objectives of EU cohesion policy.21 Further areas of policy where the Chinese officials indicated scope for learning from the EU are eco-urbanism (sustainable and green urban development) and inter-regional cooperation to enhance multilevel governance in domestic regional policy (Addendum to Memorandum of Understanding 2011). Moreover, while policy transfer appears to be mostly from the EU to China, DG REGIO expressed strong interest in learning from the Chinese experiences in coping with its extremely rapid urbanisation, which is expected to enrich the reflection on the current urban dimension of EU cohesion policy.22 Consequently, urbanisation was chosen as one of the main themes for the dialogue (Addendum to Memorandum of Understanding 2011).
Decentralised cooperation at the subnational level
Lastly, the EU and China have decentralised cooperation between subnational governments and businesses. This aspect of cooperation had already been mentioned at the Sixth EU–China high-level seminar on regional policy in October 2011 and emphasised at the Eighth EU–China high-level seminar on regional policy in October 2013 as the key dimension of the dialogue to be developed in the coming years. The underpinning aim is to encourage subnational actors to engage a broader range of subnational governments in the exchange of practices and in areas of interest for them, while at the same time promoting trade and foreign investment. One example is the cooperation between the West Midlands Local Enterprise Partnership (UK) and Guangxi Province, initiated as part of CETREGIO and gaining its own momentum as one of the pioneering decentralised EU–China partnerships. The collaboration mainly involved reciprocal study visits after 2006, focusing on the exchange of know-how in urban regeneration and innovation policy; however, it was also considered by the subnational authorities on both sides as a springboard for developing business collaboration and investment, with business-to-business interactions organised as a follow-up to the initial exchanges.23Other examples include decentralised
21Interviews with senior DG REGIO official and senior NDRC official, Brussels, 9 October 2013.
Speeches of EU officials during the EU–China Soft Diplomacy Conference, College of Europe and the Committee of Regions, Brussels, 19 April 2013.
22
Interventions of EU officials at the Eighth EU–China high-level seminar on regional policy; interview with senior DG REGIO official, Brussels, 9 October 2013. Interventions of EU officials during the EU–China Soft Diplomacy Conference, College of Europe and the Committee of Regions, Brussels, 19 April 2013.
23
Speech of the representative of the West Midlands Local Enterprise Partnership at the Eighth EU–China high-level seminar on regional policy.
collaboration between the municipalities of Vitoria-Gasteiz (Basque Country, Spain) and Sanming (Fujian Province, China) revolving around the issues of sustainable urban development (GIZ2013); and the twinning of Guangzhou and Upper Austria on regional innovation systems,24and the Polish city ofŁodz and Chengdu on the issues of trade and investment in enterprises under cross-border cooperation.
Conclusions
The common challenges for regional development, and the policy frameworks and practices to tackle them formulated by organisations such as the OECD, the World Bank and the EU, create space for the intensification of diplomatic relations and international policy transfer in regional policy, while remaining a substantially under-researched field of international cooperation. We have argued that this is an unlikely case of policy transfer, as regional policy is an inward-oriented policy and the intricacies of regional development imply a considerable uncertainty about the effects and outcomes of this policy. In this field international lesson-learning is taking place despite the odds, as this study has demonstrated by unpacking the reasons for and the mechanisms of the EU–China dialogue on regional policy.
We have shown that the reasons for this transfer are mainly political. The dialogue on regional policy between the EU and China has to be understood as part of wider diplomatic efforts by both parties to strengthen their strategic partnership, which has been developing since the late 1990s (Casarini 2006; Geeraerts 2013). Our study has shown, however, that beyond this desire to deepen the strategic bilateral liaison there are also normative considerations stemming from the EU’s ambition to project its values abroad and, on a more pragmatic level, a desire to promote trade and mutual investment. This article adds to the literature on external EU governance and rules transfer by showing that in the case of regional policy cooperation with China, the European Union cannot use conditionality or external incentives to promote the adoption of its policy approaches. Having no leverage, it can only resort to soft mechanisms of rules transfer based on persuasion and learning, which, as we demonstrated, can be mutual. From the theoretical perspective of policy transfer, the complexity of the economic, social and institutional determinants of regional growth and development makes the international transfer of regional policy solutions very difficult and creates the considerable risk of transferring solutions that will not work in a different domestic setting. This is another reason why, in this policy area, we identified mainly ‘weaker’ or ‘softer’ forms of transfer involving mutual inspiration to develop new ideas for domestic policy reforms through dialogue and the exchange of ideas with a foreign partner. The aspiration to provide third countries with ‘inspiration’ for domestic regional policies is frequently highlighted in the European Commission’s communications on the external dimension of EU cohesion policy (such as DG REGIO 2009) and in the proceedings of the official meetings to discuss regional policy with representatives of third countries. We have shown that over recent years, a growing number of EU and Chinese actors has become
24See,‘Guangzhou–Upper Austria. Cooperation on Regional Innovation’, World Cities, available at:
http://world-cities.eu/programmes-2/cetregio-2011-2014/2014-2/twinnings/upper-austria-guangzhou/, accessed 6 November 2018.
involved in this dialogue: civil servants, academics, practitioners, subnational governments and agencies, and business sector figures. We have also identified the key aspects of regional policy that are the object of this transfer, including multilevel governance, the development of territories and rural–urban linkages, the reduction of regional disparities, and the delimitation and classification of regions. By scrutinising the activities undertaken so far, we have detected a process of lesson-learning; this remains, however, a one-way process, with China learning from the EU. That said, the EU–China Cooperative Research Activity also offers potential for mutual lesson-learning for the purpose of major reform of regional policies in both the EU and China. EU officials have also declared an interest in learning from the Chinese experience of urbanisation and urban development policies in the light of the current shift of focus towards cities in EU cohesion policy, which may indeed favour cross-fertilisation of ideas and help bring about new solutions to common challenges (Dabinett & Rae 2013). But does it?
While this research has focused on the process of the policy transfer itself rather than on its results, it is worth asking whether this transfer exercise has produced any tangible outcomes or if it has merely been a costly window-dressing activity at the margins of wider diplomatic relations, enabling EU and Chinese officials to indulge in ‘policy tourism’ (Gonzalez2010) for‘travelling technocrats’ (Larner & Laurie2010)? After all, it is not uncommon for international lesson-learning to be a politicised process devoid of actual content, intended only to justify policy orientations already favoured and put forward by domestic policy-makers rather than an effort to seek new policy ideas (Marsden & Stead 2011, p. 499). While thoroughly assessing the outcomes of this policy transfer is beyond the scope of this article, we argue that, at this stage, it is impossible to point to any concrete example of elements of EU cohesion policy being actually copied or adapted to the Chinese context and implemented. While Chinese national and subnational authorities appeared to have a strong interest in EU practices in regional policy, the only example of European-inspired practice in China that we can point to is the designation of economically lagging regions as ‘bloc areas’ for targeted regional development assistance. This scheme is reminiscent of the EU cohesion policy’s concentration principle according to which EU Structural Funds are mainly channelled to less-developed regions under the ‘Convergence Objective’. According to our interviewees, the adoption of‘bloc areas’ was an outcome of the EU–China dialogue.
In other aspects of regional policy, though, there is no evidence of actual lessons being drawn or the adoption of similar practices or rules to those governing EU cohesion policy, which contrasts with other cases of dialogues with other countries, such as that between the EU and Brazil, in which approaches to programming and a specific policy vocabulary were imported into the Brazilian context from the EU (Musiałkowska et al. 2014). Against this background, however, one can justifiably pose the question regarding whether the policy dialogue in this area is worth the effort and the expense that it requires. However, learning from best practices that tend to be ‘sanitized, good news stories without details of problems, difficulties or failures along the way’ may entail some pitfalls (Stead 2012, p. 112) and the risks associated with wholesale copying of solutions that are heavily dependent on the institutional and territorial context for which they were designed (Gilbert 2002, 2008; Stead et al. 2008; Marsden & Rye
expected if not welcomed, especially taking into consideration the dramatic differences in this respect between the EU and Chinese contexts.25 In fact, policy transfer tends to (and perhaps should) be a much more complex process than mere copying as it entails a degree of hybridisation, whereby lessons are drawn from multiple sources and imported practices are adapted to the local context. In some cases, negative lessons are drawn, in which case governments on the lookout for foreign solutions to their local policy problems decide not to adopt a particular practice from elsewhere as that they deem a failure in its own context (Marsden & Stead 2011, p. 499).
Notwithstanding, it is still too soon to give a clear judgment on the added value of policy transfer between the EU and China in the field of regional policy. This exercise has been evolving still and is set to continue and deepen in the coming years (DG REGIO & NDRC 2015).26 Fully assessing the outcomes of this process will require time, given the policy’s orientation toward long-term investment and effects that only become visible after many years. Given the abovementioned tendency for hybridisation or‘picking and mixing’ of practices from different countries when learning from abroad, it is difficult to trace and identify the origin of practices adopted in the end. Therefore, to shed more light on the outcomes of the policy transfer process studied in this article, more in-depth research into the process of formulation of regional policy in China in needed.
IDA MUSIAŁKOWSKA, Poznan University of Economics and Business, Department of European Studies, Al. Niepodległosci 10, 61-875 Poznan, Poland.
Email: ida.musialkowska@ue.poznan.pl. http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7054-7648
MARCIN DA˛BROWSKI, Delft University of Technology, Faculty of Architecture and The Built Environment, Department of Urbanism, Julianalaan 134, 2628 BL Delft, The Netherlands. Email: m.m.dabrowski@tudelft.nl. http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6775-0664
References
Algieri, F. (2002) ‘EU Economic Relations with China: An Institutionalist Perspective’, The China Quarterly, 169.
Alter, K. J. (2012)‘The Global Spread of European Style International Courts’, West European Politics, 35, 1.
Bache, I. (2008) Europeanization and Multi-Level Governance: Cohesion Policy in the European Union and Britain (Lanham, MD, & New York, NY, Rowman and Littlefield).
Bachtler, J., Mendez, C. & Wishlade, F. (2013) EU Cohesion Policy and European Integrationhx202F;: The Dynamics of EU Budget and Regional Policy Reform (Farnham, Ashgate).
Bafoil, F. (2014) Emerging Capitalism in Central Europe and Southeast Asia: A Comparison of Political Economies (New York, NY, Palgrave Macmillan).
25See also the discussion on China’s ‘One Belt One Road’ initiative, which might be a new venue
towards the further ‘rebalanced’ and ‘de-Westernised’ development of the western Chinese regions (Yiwei2016pp. 26–7, 50–1).
26
See, ‘Joint Statement between the Directorate-General for Regional and Urban Policy of the European Commission and the National Development and Reform Commission of the People’s Republic of China on Comprehensively Deepening EU–China Regional Policy Cooperation’, 29 June 2015, available at: http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/sources/cooperate/international/pdf/joint_stat_eu_china_ 2015_en.pdf, accessed 17 June 2016; ‘EU–China’, DG REGIO, European Commission, available at: http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/pl/policy/cooperation/international/china/, accessed 19 October 2018.
