Charles Michel to visit Beijing as EU tries to adapt China policy

European Council President Charles Michel will journey to China subsequent week to satisfy with the nation’s management in a bid to get a way of the place China stands on key points at “this essential juncture.”

Michel will go to Beijing on December 1 and meet with President Xi Jinping, Prime Minister Li Kepiang and chairman of the Standing Committee of the Nationwide Individuals’s Congress Li Zhanshu.

It’ll come six weeks after the 27 leaders of the European Union held a three-hour-long strategic dialogue on China, sparked by the nation’s refusal to sentence Russia’s aggression on Ukraine, the rising commerce deficit to the advantage of Beijing, and the realisation that the bloc is very depending on China for expertise and uncooked supplies.

Different considerations embody the safety implications of Chinese language investments within the bloc’s essential infrastructure, China’s assertiveness within the area, and specifically its rhetoric over Taiwan, in addition to Xi’s reelection to a 3rd unprecedented time period.

“The President bought, I feel, a transparent mandate on what our China coverage must be” from that dialogue, an EU official mentioned on Thursday.

Michel, he added, “thought it could be good to have interaction with China since we’re at a essential juncture”.

The 2 will talk about geopolitical developments, the financial system and commerce ties and different world challenges together with local weather change, well being, in addition to rising meals and vitality costs.

The European chief is in the meantime, anticipated to lift “questions of human rights and our values,” the official mentioned, together with current developments in Hong Kong and Xinjiang.

It’s nonetheless unclear whether or not Michel will participate in a joint press convention with any of his Chinese language hosts, owing to the stringent COVID-19 measures in place within the nation. 

It’s also unlikely that the go to will result in any type of announcement.

As a substitute, the EU official mentioned, the go to must be seen as a primary engagement and discussions as a deliverable.

“What we predict is required is a brand new impetus on the connection and to test what has modified and what are the brand new parameters,” he mentioned.

Russia, and China’s potential sway over it, can be a key dialogue. The EU desires to make sure that China doesn’t present Russia with weapons or any supplies underneath western embargo.

Right here China has despatched constructive alerts in current weeks, together with agreeing to a G20 joint communiqué that deplored “within the strongest phrases the aggression by the Russian Federation in opposition to Ukraine”.

Michel’s first bodily assembly with Xi comes a month after German Chancellor Olaf Scholz travelled to Beijing for a go to and after French President Emmanuel Macron met with the Chinese language chief on the sidelines of the G20 summit earlier this month. 

The bloc has additionally lately adopted laws aimed toward curbing Chinese language subsidised firms’ entry to the EU market.