In 2019, the EU published a report on China that defined China as a systemic rival. The systemic rival illustrates that the EU will increase its competition with China. While China still intends to cooperate with the EU and wants to build a new type of major power relations with it according to the China policy paper on the EU. Therefore, the research question is why does China want to build a new type of major power relations with the EU against the background of the EU’s identification of China as a systemic rival? For answering the question, the thesis will use the main standpoints of the neorealism theory, such as the national interests, the security dilemma, and the balance of power, and the viewpoints of social constructivism theory, like identity, and sociological structure and security community, to explain it. Therefore, the quantitative data will be collected to verify the neorealism theory and the qualitative data will be used to define China’s identity. Also, the qualitative content analysis will be applied to this thesis. In conclusion, building a new type of power relations with the EU is not only determined by China’s national identity, but also because a united, stable, and prosperous EU is in China’s interests more than a fragile and divided one.