ABSTRACT
The European Economic Community (EEC) established diplomatic relations with China in 1975. What merits our attention during this period is the establishment of the EEC–China diplomatic relations, the negotiations about the 1975 EEC–China Trade Agreement and the 1979 Textile Agreement. During this period, the European Communities can be largely qualified as a linkage power since the linkage was used as a crucial strategy and produced concrete effects. Its political, economic and institutional power resources were also used in a relatively coherent way, which should be attributed to a strong consensus among the major EC institutions and Member States in developing good political and economic relations with China. The coherence of the EC's power resources also considerably strengthened the effectiveness of the EC's linkages.
