This is their first face-to-face meeting in over four years. The European Union and China are at a summit this Thursday. But what to learn from this meeting? What do both parties want? 20 minutes explains everything to you.
Why this summit?
This meeting comes at a time of resumption of diplomatic exchanges between Brussels and Beijing, at the end of the Covid-19 pandemic which had isolated China from the rest of the world. For several months, several European commissioners have traveled to the country to renew dialogue in person.
Both parties are aware of the benefits of a rapprochement. “China is the EU’s most important trading partner,” recalled the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen.
What’s blocking?
There are many issues of division between the EU and its largest economic partner, whether it is the large trade deficit or the war in Ukraine, two subjects which should be at the heart of discussions on Thursday. “European leaders will not tolerate an imbalance in trade over the long term,” Ursula von der Leyen warned on Tuesday in an interview in Brussels.
“We have tools to protect our market,” she stressed, while expressing her preference for “negotiated solutions”. The European Union’s trade deficit with China has doubled in two years to reach a record figure of 390 billion euros in 2022, according to the President of the European Commission. Beijing responded on Wednesday that the European Union’s export policy towards China, accompanied by restrictions on the export of high-tech products, made “no sense”.
What does Beijing expect from this face-to-face meeting?
China will try during this summit to “protect its image as a global player and to reassure European players about the direction the Chinese economy is taking,” said Grzegorz Stec, an analyst at the China think tank Merics. The war between Israel and Hamas and the Russian offensive in Ukraine will also be on the agenda. Beijing has regularly been criticized by the West on the Ukrainian issue. Because if China calls for respect for the territorial integrity of all countries – including Ukraine – it has never publicly condemned Moscow.
In October, Vladimir Putin was also welcomed in Beijing by Xi Jinping who praised their “deep friendship”. The Chinese president called to “respond together to global challenges and work together to promote stability and prosperity in the world”, during a meeting with Ursula von der Leyen and the President of the European Council Charles Michel at Diaoyutai, the villa of State of the Chinese government in Beijing.
And what about results?
Analyst Nicholas Bequelin notes that the European Union has “no confidence” in Beijing. “It is therefore unlikely that the two parties will obtain what they want from the other,” underlines this expert from the Paul Tsai China Center, a think tank.
“China and Europe are partners, not rivals, and their common interests far outweigh their differences,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin insisted this week. The fact remains that if progress can be expected on the trade side, it is nevertheless difficult to imagine an upheaval in the world views of the respective parties as they differ so much.