China’s Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs, Wang Yi, praised the partnership between the EU and his country on Sunday 15 December.
“China and the EU have far more common denominators than differences and far more cooperation than competition”, he explained in a statement to the press on the margins of the ASEM summit, stating that the EU and China were “partners and not rivals”.
According to him, the two sides have similar or analogous views” whether on enhanced multilateralism, free trade, the authority of the United Nations, international law or the basic norms governing international relations. “China and the EU are two major global forces, two major markets and two civilisations”, he added.
According to the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Josep Borrell, trade between the EU and China averages well over €1 billion a day.
He added that both sides must “move forward with our friendship and cooperation in all areas”, including the vexing ones. The EU, for example, has recently denounced the situation in Hong Kong and with the Muslim Uighur minority. “We will work together to build a partnership that also takes human rights into account”, added Mr Borrell. In response, Wang Yi recalled that neither party should interfere in the other’s internal affairs.
Great promise for 2020
According to Wang Yi, 2020, the year of the 45th anniversary of bilateral relations, will be beneficial for the EU-China partnership. The year will be marked by several summits: a ‘16+1’ summit (China and the Central and Eastern European countries) in the first half of the year, an EU-China summit and a summit bringing together European leaders and all European Heads of State and Government in the second half of the year under the German EU Council Presidency in Leipzig. “Such intensive high-level engagement will certainly provide a strong impetus for bilateral opportunities”, said the Chinese minister.
The latter has strong ambitions for 2020. He wants to work on the global agreement on investment between China and the EU. In April 2019, at the EU-China Summit, both sides reiterated their determination to make “decisive” progress in bilateral negotiations with a view to sealing such an agreement by 2020 (see EUROPE 12355/14, 12232/7, 12368/18).
The minister also underlined his desire to see progress in the synergy between the Chinese Belt Road and the EU’s connectivity strategy (see EUROPE 12117/19).
It also wants to develop new areas of cooperation such as climate change and the digital economy and to make progress on the formulation and development of a blueprint for EU-China dialogue and cooperation for the next five years. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant with Hermine Donceel)