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Politico | China’s EU envoy to Europe: plot your own path, not Washington’s

  • Zhang Ming promises no breakthroughs in the EU-China summit on Tuesday

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Zhang Ming speaks during a seminar held by the Brussels-based think tank Friends of Europe on March 20. Photo: Xinhua

This story is published in a content partnership with POLITICO. It was originally reported by Nicholas Vinocur and Laurens Cerulus on politico.eu on April 8, 2019.

Hey, Europe: don’t let Washington ruin our good thing.

That was the message from China’s top representative to the European Union, who spoke to POLITICO in the run-up to a Beijing-EU summit on Tuesday, taking place against a backdrop of growing tensions on trade and technology.

Zhang Ming in Strasbourg, France, in January. Photo: Xinhua
Zhang Ming in Strasbourg, France, in January. Photo: Xinhua

Amid last-minute preparations for the talks, which aim to salvage a bruised relationship between Brussels and Beijing, Zhang Ming urged the EU to maintain its spirit of economic openness and the level playing field for foreign companies to invest and grow inside the EU.

But he also lamented Europe’s toughening stance towards Beijing, pushing back against the term “systemic rival” adopted by European countries to describe China, arguing that such polarising language was not even used during the cold war at a time of icy relations.

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