Introduction

In his chapter, Mario Telò emphatically denies that a cold war between Europe and China is inevitable. Offering a detailed historical analysis of political and economic relations between China and Europe, he concludes that, although we are witnessing an intensification of various tendencies toward a new cold war, powerful economic and political factors thus far have succeeded in containing such tendencies, making a reprise of the twentieth century’s eponymous conflict not only unnecessary but also unlikely.