As part of The Good Information Project last month, we posed the question ‘What will the future of Irish-Chinese relations look like?’. 

IRELAND IS SEEN by China’s Foreign Ministry as a ‘stable force’ within the European Union that might help salvage deteriorating EU-China relations. 

But how much influence does Ireland really have in that regard? And where is the EU’s relationship with China heading? 

In this video, we tease out these issues, along with many others, with the help of German Green Party MEP Reinhard Bütikofer. 

Chair of the European Parliament’s delegation on China and one of five MEPs recently sanctioned by the Chinese Community Party (CCP), Bütikofer says country’s like Ireland, who have careful approaches to the CCP, leave the EU “vulnerable to Chinese coercion and pressure”. 

This work is co-funded by Journal Media and a grant programme from the European Parliament. Any opinions or conclusions expressed in this work is the author’s own. The European Parliament has no involvement in nor responsibility for the editorial content published by the project. For more information, see here.