Explaining the political gridlock behind international Circular Economy: Chinese and European perspectives on the Waste Ban

China and the EU recently established an agreement to develop a Circular Economy (CE), a (re)emerging socio-economic framework to address growing challenges of global environmental change. Up to now, there is limited research addressing the implications of a joint CE framework following the China-EU agreement. Based on 72 expert interviews, 52 documents and participant observation, we study political narratives around the Chinese Waste Ban (WB) to understand China and EU’s visions for a global CE. Our results reveal a political gridlock in China-EU coordination regarding the WB as the two political actors are not yet synchronized regarding their waste management visions and are mentally unprepared to cooperate on international CE development. Both rely on old development and trade discourses, have diverging CE visions and conflicting perceptions of their respective waste governance roles, as well as prioritize differing scales for international CE development. Based on these results, we suggest CE stakeholders to reevaluate the EU and China’s mutual narratives and related agencies. Most importantly, we argue that decision-makers need to reimagine their roles beyond a linear development model, and to focus on waste prevention instead of waste diversion.