A stronger and closer China-European Union (EU) partnership would be of tremendous help to the European region's painful wrestling with its chronic debt and the efforts worldwide to jump-start a more robust global economic recovery.
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao arrived in Brussels on Wednesday to attend the annual meeting with EU leaders, and both sides should take the summit as a unique opportunity to settle trade disputes and work together to move their all-round cooperation up a notch.
For the past decade, apart from frequent contacts between their senior leadership and growing exchanges among peoples of all walks of life, China and the EU countries have also groomed a rather remarkable expansion in trade cooperation.
The EU has now become China's top trading partner and its largest export market. Statistically speaking, last year saw two-way trade between China and the EU quadruple that of 10 years ago, to 567.2 billion U.S. dollars.
The regional bloc is also a key technology provider and important source of foreign investment for China.
However, this fast-growing trade has already suffered a big blow because of the region's mounting debt problems, which began in Greece almost three years ago.
The European Central Bank's recent bond-buying and the German Court's approval of the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) are still far from calming the widespread fears of the bloc's final disintegration, not to mention boosting market confidence in the region's vibrant future economic resurgence in the long run.
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