European countries should wake up and improve their relations with China, in order to tap huge win-win opportunities, instead of blindly following the United States' foreign policy as in the past years, according to leading international scholars and former diplomats.

Jeffrey Sachs, a renowned economist and a professor at Columbia University, said the China-Europe relationship is extremely important and can be hugely beneficial to both sides.

"Europe needs to wake up, and not have only a US foreign policy but have Europe's own foreign policy," he told China Daily in Brussels on Wednesday.

"I am hoping that the arrival of the (Donald) Trump administration would give Europe the realization: We need an independent, respectful foreign policy, and that would mean good relations with China — trade, investment, partnership of (Global Gateway and) the Belt and Road Initiative.

"All of these will be a huge win-win," said Sachs, who has served as a special adviser to several United Nations secretaries-general.

Sachs' words echoed Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, who said at the Munich Security Conference on Feb 14 that "China is willing to synergize high-quality Belt and Road cooperation with the European Union's Global Gateway strategy, so as to empower each other and empower the entire world".

"China has always seen Europe as an important pole in the multipolar world. The two sides are partners, not rivals," Wang said.

Noting that this year marks the 50th anniversary of China-EU diplomatic relations, Wang said that China is willing to work with Europe to deepen strategic communication and mutually beneficial cooperation, and steer the world to a bright future of peace, security, prosperity and progress.

Kishore Mahbubani, a distinguished fellow at the National University of Singapore's Asia Research Institute, also criticized Europe for mimicking the US' hostile policy toward China.

"What geopolitical pressures have caused the downturn in EU-China relations? The Europeans foolishly believed that a slavish loyalty to American geopolitical priorities would lead to rich geopolitical dividends for them. Instead, they have been kicked in the face," he wrote in Foreign Policy magazine on Feb 18, referring to the drastically deteriorating relations between the US and the EU in the past weeks over the Ukraine crisis and potential trade wars.

Mahbubani, who once served as Singapore's permanent representative to the UN and president of the UN Security Council, said that China can help the EU deal with its real long-term geopolitical nightmare given the demographic explosions in Africa.

He argued that a surge of African migrants into Europe would produce Trump-type leaders in Europe.

Mahbubani said that Europeans should welcome any foreign investment in Africa that creates jobs and keeps Africans at home.

"Instead, the Europeans are shooting themselves in the foot by criticizing and opposing China's investment in Africa. Just this one act demonstrates how naive long-term European strategic thinking has become," he wrote. "Brussels is sacrificing its own strategic interests to serve American interests in the hope that geopolitical subservience would lead to rewards."

Ding Chun, director of the Centre for European Studies at Fudan University, said that given Trump's unilateralism and the withdrawal of the US from international organizations and treaties, the EU and China have more common ground on upholding multilateralism and World Trade Organization rules and fighting climate change.

"The EU and China could ease their tensions in trade and investment," Ding said. But he added that a fundamental change for the EU by abandoning its de-risking strategy might not happen.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen's message on China at the annual EU Ambassadors Conference in Brussels on Feb 4 was much less hostile than before.

"This will be an intense year in our relationship with China, as we mark half a century of diplomatic relations," she said.

"I think we can find agreements that could even expand our trade and investment ties," she added.

chenweihua@chinadaily.com.cn