China sees Europe as key trade partner, Xi Jinping tells visiting EU leaders
- Expectations were low as the Chinese leader met Ursula von der Leyen and Charles Michel, the heads of the European Council and Commission
- Von der Leyen said later the bloc wanted to work with Beijing on artificial intelligence and had asked it to use its influence to stop Russia’s war in Ukraine
Chinese leader Xi Jinping has told visiting EU leaders that Europe will be a key trade partner in fields such as technology and supply chains.
Xi was meeting the Presidents of the European Commission and Council, Ursula von der Leyen and Charles Michel, in Beijing for a summit held amid strained relations.
Other areas of tension include Taiwan, the war in Ukraine – and concerns Chinese firms are helping Russia get round sanctions – as well as a growing trade deficit that reached €390 billion (US$420.5 billion) in China’s favour last year, according to the EU.
“China is promoting high-quality development and high-level opening-up, and will view the EU as a key partner in trade, a prioritised partner in technology cooperation, and a trustworthy partner in industrial and supply chain cooperation,” Xi said, according to a statement from the Chinese foreign ministry.
“The economies of China and Europe highly complement each other. Both sides should make more efforts to tighten the bonds of the China-EU community of shared interests through deeper and broader cooperation.”
Xi told von der Leyen and Michel that Beijing and Brussels should “form accurate perceptions of each other and strengthen mutual understanding and trust” as well as being “trustful and faithful and putting their hearts and minds into developing their relationship”.
Specifically, he said China and the European Union should “complement each other in markets, capital and technologies; promote upgrades in traditional industries and the development of emerging industries; explore new models of cooperation, create new areas of growth; and together improve industrial and supply chains”, Xi said.
The European leaders said they were “looking forward to developing a consistently stable, predictable, sustainable relationship with China”, according to the Chinese statement.
They added that the bloc “hopes to continue dialogue and cooperation” in areas such as trade and the green and digital economies, as well as maintaining supply chains. They also said they wanted to cooperate on global issues such as climate change and artificial intelligence.
“China has started its global AI governance initiative and the European Union is right now finalising its first AI act to ensure that artificial intelligence complies with our fundamental rights and our values.
“So even if our governance models are different, we agreed that we should seek to cooperate on artificial intelligence at the global level,” von de Leyen told a media briefing in Beijing in the evening.
“We need China to use all its influence on Russia to stop this war of aggression and engage in Ukraine’s peace formula,” she said.
“We reiterated to refrain from supplying lethal equipment to Russia and to prevent any attempts from Russia to undermine the impact of sanctions.”
Michel said they have pressured Chinese leaders to stop Chinese companies from bypassing sanctions on Russia.
“We have identified a list of companies which are suspected to play a role in circumventing sanctions and we had the occasion to make clear both in preparation for this summit but also during the summit… We hope today we are heard and then the appropriate action will be taken by China,” Michel said.
In a post on X, formerly Twitter, von der Leyen said the leaders agreed that they have “a joint interest in balanced trade relations” and hope to “increase people-to-people exchanges”.
Premier Li Qiang, who met the two presidents in a separate session, said China hoped the EU would be prudent when introducing restrictive economic and trade policies, and keep trade and investment markets open.
“China opposes turning economic and trade issues into political or security ones, which violates the basic norms of a market economy,” Li said, according to state broadcaster CCTV.
02:36
French and EU leaders urge China to ‘bring Russia to its senses’ and stop invasion of Ukraine
He said China is ready to work with the European side to seek common ground and strengthen mutually beneficial cooperation to further enhance the stability, constructiveness and reciprocity of China-EU relations.
Jens Eskelund, president of the EU Chamber of Commerce in China, said it was very important that the two sides actually sat down together and had conversations about upcoming obstacles in their relationship.
“The relationship between Europe and China has created enormous wealth on both sides, but it’s also clear that in certain areas that relationship is out of balance right now. We hope that there will be a way that [they] start listening to each other,” Eskelund said.
Additional reporting Finbarr Bermingham, Mandy Zuo and Dang Yuanyue
