The EU's China policy is defined by the 'Elements for a new EU Strategy on China' and 'Council Conclusions EU Strategy on China' which were reviewed in 2019 in the 'EU-China Strategic Outlook'. Together these documents reflect the fundamental premises of EU's engagement based on a realistic, assertive and multi-faceted approach in order to promote democracy, rule of law, human rights, and respect for the UN Charter and international law, with the pursuit for reciprocal benefits in political and economic relations.

The practical cooperation agenda for the EU and China is set out in the  EU-China Summit Joint Statements and the midterm 'EU-China 2020 Strategic Agenda for Cooperation', jointly signed by the EU and China in 2013. The latter covers the areas of peace and security, prosperity, sustainable development, and people-to-people exchanges.

Bilateral relations are conducted at the highest level through the annual EU-China Summit, which is usually preceded by the key bilateral dialogues: the Strategic Dialogue, the EU-China Human Rights Dialogue, the High-Level Economic and Trade Dialogue (HED) and the High-Level People-to-People Dialogue.

• EU-China summit via video conference, 22 June 2020
• EU-China leaders' meeting via video conference, 14 September 2020
• EU-China Leaders’ meeting via video conference, 30 December 2020

On 30 December 2020, the EU and China reached an agreement in principle on a Comprehensive Agreement on Investment.