Top EU diplomat Josep Borrell to visit China in October to finalise agenda for summit

The European Union’s top diplomat will visit Beijing in mid-October to finalise an agenda for the EU-China summit, likely to take place in November.

Josep Borrell’s planned trip has been postponed twice, first due to a positive Covid-19 diagnosis, then after the disappearance of ex-foreign minister Qin Gang. He is now expected to travel sometime during the week beginning October 9 for a series of meetings in China, according to people familiar with the plan.

The centrepiece of the Spaniard’s trip will be the annual strategic dialogue with his counterpart, Wang Yi, which will set the terms of a summit attended by Chinese President Xi Jinping, European Council President Charles Michel and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen the following month.

Borrell last met Wang on the sidelines of an Asean gathering in Jakarta in July, after the veteran Chinese diplomat stepped in amid confusion over Qin’s whereabouts. Wang subsequently resumed his role as foreign minister, with Beijing releasing no information on Qin’s situation.

The EU leadership plans to meet Chinese Premier Li Qiang in New Delhi this weekend, after meetings with Xi were shelved due to his decision to skip the G20 summit.

Thereafter, from September 19 to 24, EU trade chief Valdis Dombrovskis will visit China for talks with He Lifeng, Beijing’s vice-premier responsible for economic affairs. It is understood that an advance team is travelling early from Brussels to ensure the pair have agreements to sign during the economic meeting.

The Latvian’s trip is expected to focus on trade grievances in the bilateral relationship. A report published by the EU’s trade department on Wednesday said “dumped and subsidised imports from China remain the greatest challenge causing damage to European manufacturing industry”.

But the report found that the United States was the country most frequently employing “trade defence instruments against EU exports”, with 38 measures in force, followed by China and Turkey “with 18 each”.

Xi’s G20 absence frustrates Europeans eager for time with China’s decision maker

Dombrovskis is also expected to hone in on China’s ailing trade economy, which EU officials think gives them some leverage. Brussels believes the downturn could provide arguments for improving market conditions for European firms, even at a time when EU governments are discussing ways to de-risk their relations with China.

An EU economic security strategy proposed in June seeks for the first time to implement restrictions on outbound investment in some hi-tech sectors in China, while expanding the bloc’s use of export controls.

Customs data released on Thursday showed that China’s exports to the EU fell by 19.58 per cent last month, while imports from the EU fell by 5.74 per cent.

Meanwhile, the convenor of Hong Kong’s Executive Council, Regina Ip Lau Suk-yee, was in Brussels this week to discuss “politically sensitive” issues with EU officials.

Ip on Wednesday met officials focused on China and Hong Kong in the bloc’s external action service – its de facto foreign office – led by the head of the China desk, Dominic Porter. On Thursday, she met Leila Fernandez-Stembridge, a member of Borrell’s cabinet focused on Asia-Pacific. She told the Post she was the first Hong Kong official to come to Brussels for such talks since the end of coronavirus pandemic-related travel restrictions.

Hong Kong leader pitches city as ‘ideal gateway’ to East at EU envoy meeting

Ip, the Hong Kong government’s top adviser, said she had tried to explain the “importance of one country, two systems” to the officials and sought to “dispel some misconceptions about the implementation of the national security law” in the city.

The EU’s office in Hong Kong helped to facilitate Ip’s meetings after she told diplomats she was visiting family in London and was interested in meeting Brussels officials.

Last month, the EU in an annual report criticised the “continuing erosion of Hong Kong’s high degree of autonomy and of rights and freedoms that were meant to be protected until at least 2047”.

The report for 2022 described at length the “far-reaching implementation of the national security law”, which it said had encroached on academic and media freedom, rights of assembly and association, and “cast doubt on the state of the rule of law in Hong Kong – a cornerstone of its economic success”.

The EU pointed to the “intensification” of trials under the national security law, which by the end of last year had led to the arrest of 236 people, some “held in custody since January 2021, in some cases in solitary confinement”, the detention of minors and the invocation of a colonial-era sedition law.

South China Morning Post