We have tools to protect our market, declares the head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, before the EU-China summit.
The EU-China summit starts in Beijing, the first event of this type since 2019. In recent years, tensions between Brussels and Beijing have increased, especially over trade, but since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Chinese policy towards will play a certain role in relation to Moscow.
Strong position of the EC
Ursula von der Leyen’s latest speech could indicate that the summit will not improve relations. – The member states of the European Union will not tolerate the growing trade imbalance with China forever. We have tools to protect our market, the head of the European Commission told a reporter from the AFP news agency.
As she emphasized, the EU is not trying to “decouple” economically from relations with China, but only to “reduce the risk” associated with overly one-sided trade relations. The issue concerns imports: the European Union imports a huge amount of products from China, while the reverse is incomparably smaller.
– We have seen growing trade imbalances. The trade deficit between the EU and China has doubled in the past two years. It currently reaches a value of almost 400 billion euros, Ursula von der Leyen emphasizes.
The head of the European Commission insists that “European leaders will not tolerate an imbalance in trade relations forever.”
Biden-Xi Jinping meeting
In mid-November, Joe Biden and Xi Jinping met for the first time in a year. Both sides agreed that the US and China would resume direct contacts between their militaries. Both the Americans and Chinese agreed that their political leaders should more often calmly discuss the most pressing issues on bilateral, global and regional issues. The main topics of Joe Biden’s conversation with Xi Jinping included the Russian-Ukrainian war, the escalation of the conflict in the Middle East and the dispute over the status of Taiwan.
It was also indicated that Washington and Beijing will compete responsibly so that, as the whole world expects, there will be no confrontation or a new “cold war.”
Source: Do Rzeczy
Roy Brown is a renowned economist and author at The Nation View. He has a deep understanding of the global economy and its intricacies. He writes about a wide range of economic topics, including monetary policy, fiscal policy, international trade, and labor markets.
