Commentary The Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, the China–EU Comprehensive Agreement on Investment, the China-Central and Eastern Europe Cooperation Mechanism (17+1 mechanism), and the Belt and Road Initiative can be viewed as the four pillars that support China–EU relations. However, recent actions by member states of the EU have caused some cracks to form in all four pillars. Among the four strategic pillars, the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership is the most important one as it indicated an improvement in cooperation between the two sides. On Oct. 13, 2003, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) published its first policy document on the European Union. On the same day, the European Union approved its fifth China policy communication under the title, “A maturing partnership—shared interests and challenges in EU-China relations,” positioning the EU–China relationship as a “strategic partnership” for the first time. As the U.S.–China trade war intensified, the EU’s positioning of the CCP changed significantly …