Beijing, 21/05/2001 (Agence Europe) - The European Commissioner for External Relations, Chris Patten, during his visit to China (on which we will return in more detail), made, on Monday, before the European Chamber of Commerce in Beijing a speech in which he speaks of his hope that, together, we can do something over the explosion of the trade deficit between the EU and China that seems to double each time I come back to China. In Europe, he added, we increasingly have the feeling that this deficit, which was EUR 44.4 billion in 2000, does not only reflect the diligence of competitiveness of Chinese companies and businessmen. The impression is that EU exporters to China would be better off without a series of formal and informal trade barriers, he said, when noting that China is not always an easy partner for the EU, and that the development of EU/Beijing relations requires an undertaking by China at all levels. We wanted this at the highest political level, during the first three summits, and there will be a fourth in September in Brussels, but the questions that are on the agenda, be it illegal immigration or information technologies, require the full support of the Chinese authorities at lower levels, including in the regions, underlined Chris Patten.