Chris Patten: China's success is good for all of us

From a speech by the EU Commissioner for External Relations, at Chatham House, London

No survey of European Union–Asia relations can ignore China, where developments over the coming period will determine the future not just of the region, but of the world. Every day the headlines alert us to the awesome social, economic, and environmental problems confronting China. But I still find it difficult to change my view: I am bullish on China.

To be a bear on China's prospects is, after all, to be gloomy about the outlook for mankind. China represents between a fifth and a quarter of humanity, with more than its share of creative and hard-working men and women. If they cannot overcome the challenges that face them then the future for all of us will be bleak.

Any visitor to China is overwhelmed by the contradictions inherent in its helter-skelter progress. During a journey in any direction, but particularly from the rich coastal provinces into the hinterland, you cover in the space of a few hundred miles every stage of economic development from primitive, subsistence agriculture to high-tech industrialisation.

Travelling from Shanghai through Jiangsu province last Easter, I was amazed by the pace of economic change. Yet even in China's richest provinces there were pockets of severe under-development and backwaters of tradition, reminders of how difficult it must be to govern a country so extreme in its diversity.

Many historians and commentators doubt that China can manage a peaceful process of political change. They point to the bloody history of the last century, and their doubts are reinforced by the modern problems that crowd in on China's leaders. But we can do more than just watch nervously.

We should, first, make clear that we regard China's success as good for all of us, and encourage China to take its full place in the institutions of global governance. Its entry into the World Trade Organisation is an excellent development. The EU has been engaged in consultations with China on illegal migration and trafficking in human beings. We must continue to engage China across the whole agenda.

Also, we must continue to talk about human rights and the rule of law in China. These are not topics to be swept under the carpet. We do China no service when we blow hot and cold on these issues

I have long argued that it is impossible to open up any society – even China – in economic and social terms, while indefinitely keeping an iron grip on politics. Whatever the stated ambitions of today's Communist Party leaders, it is difficult to believe that many of the new generation who are climbing the ladder of power believe that political progress can be stalled forever.