Strategic (Comprehensive) Partnership, as a general concept and also as a specific foreign policy instrument for developing the European Union’s relations with key world countries (strategic partners), involves not only equivalent, mutually beneficial and institutionalized cooperation in many areas but also a joint solution to strategic (security and defense) issues and issues of regional and global governance where parties not only cooperate but also share responsibility. The objective of this article is to analyze the legal instruments (criteria) of the EU-China Strategic Partnership and to compare its character with the general legal concept of the EU Strategic Partnership. Based on this analysis we will answer the question whether the EU-China Strategic Partnership shows evidence of unclarity, imperfection and elusiveness of the EU’s Strategic Partnership.