EU top diplomat visits China; trip to 'seek common ground'

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell started his visit to China on Thursday, and was scheduled to meet some business representatives and Chinese academics in Shanghai, with the focus on issues such as the EU's strategic autonomy, trade tensions between the EU and China, the escalating Israel-Palestine conflict and the Ukraine crisis.

With the bloc's top diplomat urging Beijing to stop viewing China-EU relations solely through its rivalry with the US and expressing doubt on its neutral position on the Ukraine issue, some experts said the messages released ahead of the visit reflected some misunderstandings in Europe about EU-China ties. But most importantly, Borrell's trip is expected to help bring divergences under control and find common ground to work together.

"Inspiring exchange in Shanghai with European companies on economic and business challenges. We must address these challenges because neither we nor China can ignore each other's market," Borrell said in a post on social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, on Thursday.

Borrell is scheduled to visit China from Thursday to Saturday, and will co-chair the 12th EU-China Strategic Dialogue together with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, according to a media advisory released on the European External Action Service. The European diplomat will also give a speech at Peking University.

Finding common ground

Ahead of the visit, Borrell said in an interview with the South China Morning Post (SCMP) that "China should stop viewing its relationship with Europe through the lens of its rivalry with the US," and "his first objective" is to reaffirm that EU takes China seriously and "we expect China to take us more seriously."

Some global issues will be discussed during the meeting between Borrell and Wang, such as escalating tensions between Israel and Palestine and the Ukraine crisis, the EU's top diplomat revealed in the interview. But he also pointed out that the EU is not "totally convinced by China's argument that China is neutral in this conflict."

"Those remarks of Borrell showed that there are some misunderstandings about EU-China relations inside Europe, which could be misled by the US," Sun Keqin, a research fellow at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, told the Global Times on Thursday.

China has always supported the strategic autonomy of the EU, and expects it to play a more important role in a multipolar world, Sun said. "What we oppose is the US sabotaging and blocking the cooperation between China and the EU, and there are many Atlanticists in the EU who have been criticizing China from the perspective of Washington."

The Chinese Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday that Borrell's visit is conducive to the healthy and stable development of China-EU relations. China is willing to work with the EU to strengthen strategic communication, coordination and cooperation, enhance mutual trust and appropriately handle differences, as the two powers share a wide range of common interests.

During the meetings with Borrell, the Chinese side will present its views on the EU's recent China policy, correct the EU's biased perception of China, and prevent some concepts and policies unilaterally proposed by the EU from causing more trouble to bilateral relations, some experts said.

Bloomberg described this trip of the EU's top diplomat as a "delicate task", as he has to "push back against Chinese subsidies and prevent the $900 billion relationship from imploding into a trade war. The EU recently launched a probe into so-called state subsidies on China's electric vehicles.

With some competitive factors in EU's China policy increasing and systemic rivalry strengthening, especially when the EU seeks to reduce reliance on China over "de-risking" concerns, the significance of Borrell's visit lies in exchanging views on divergences and bringing differences under control, Sun said, noting that more importantly, the two sides can find more common ground on global governance, regional and global issues and economic cooperation.

Only by keeping a moderate balance between China and the US can Europe achieve greater strategic autonomy, experts said.

"In other words, the more options Europe has, the greater the possibility for strategic independence. If Europe were to simply lean toward the US, then the option of a relationship with China would be off the table," Jiang Feng, a research fellow at the Shanghai International Studies University, told the Global Times on Thursday.

Europe should recognize its role as a force for peace and development. Suppressing and containing China like the US and instigating great power confrontations will only lead to greater regional instability, Jiang noted. "This lesson becomes even clearer after the heightened US-Russia or West-Russia confrontations that eventually plunged Europe into chaos," he said, noting that Europe became the primary victim, which should serve as a wake-up call.

Despite facing challenges, both China and Europe are currently seeking to stabilize bilateral relations and move forward from the turbulent and icy periods of the previous years, which also represents the largest consensus between the two sides, experts said.

Reflection needed

Borrell's visit comes just days after tensions between Israel and Hamas continued to escalate, which are not part of the official agenda of the meeting but which "will no doubt" be raised, the SCMP said, citing senior EU sources.

He was also quoted as saying in the media report that the EU and China can try to work together on issues such as the Israel-Palestine conflict, but doubted China's consistent position on the Ukraine crisis.

China is not a party to the Russia-Ukraine conflict, and its stance on the issue has been clear and consistent, Gao Jian, director of the Center for British Studies at Shanghai International Studies University, told the Global Times on Thursday.

"As a major country, China will absolutely not accept any interference from international political forces in its development or its normal bilateral relationship with Russia. This is because China is a nation with genuine strategic independence and the ability to act autonomously," he said.

What the European side should reflect on is the root cause of the outbreak of the conflict. The formation of the EU came after years of war and was based on self-reflection for peace. For Europe today, to approach the Russia-Ukraine conflict with a confrontational mindset and attempt to resolve it through military means seems both irrational and unlikely, Gao said.