SPEAKERS: Zhang Yongjin, University of Bristol; Gudrun Wacker, Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik, SWP; Una Aleksandra Bērziņa-Čerenkova, Riga Stradins University

DISCUSSANTS: Marcin Kaczmarski, University of Glasgow; Nana de Graaff, Vrije Universiteit

MODERATOR: Agota Revesz, Technische Universität Berlin

The past three years have seen a world in isolation, China has practically shut its doors airtight. Our democracy is ailing and needs corrections or even a full-scale transformation. Institutions for global governance that could efficiently fight against a pandemic or climate change are barely functional. Against this backdrop we can see a strong re-emergence of the narrative that divides the world into democracies and autocracies. The new German government seems to abandon the “change through trade” approach vis-à-vis China and move towards a more uniform foreign policy which prioritizes values over financial gain. The most recent EU approach is also transatlantic commitment instead of “strategic hedging”. With the current polarization, however, the world has ended up in a new Cold (or even Hot?) War along the democracy-autocracy binary. The topic of the discussion is the reasons behind and the consequences of this binary narrative, and how it might affect the China-policy of the EU.