2. Improving Mechanisms to Ensure Further Cooperation

Starting from scratch, China-CEEC Cooperation has gone through a process of constant improvement and innovation. Over the past eight years, successive summits, national coordinators’ meetings and ministerial meetings in different sectors have laid the foundation for a constantly enriching and improving format. The establishment of the Secretariat for China-CEEC Cooperation and the appointment of the Special Representative for China-CEEC Cooperation Affairs have enriched and improved the format’s coordination mechanism. Cooperation at both the national and sub-national levels have been injecting vigor to the format. A series of platforms on sectoral cooperation have been put in place in respect for the diversity of CEECs which helped China-CEEC Cooperation to move towards a practical direction that benefits all (see Table 1). Currently, most of the sectoral cooperation platforms (networks, centers, associations, etc.) have their own secretariats that are working actively to deepen cooperation in their respective field. Such institutional innovation has been rarely seen in the over 40 years of China-EU relations, and therefore has attracted much attention in China and internationally.

Table 1 Sectoral Cooperation Platforms Established or In Preparation under China-CEEC Cooperation (37 in total)

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