[Salon] EU leaders plan trip to Beijing in July for summit with Xi Jinping

[Chas Freeman <cwfresidence@gmail.com>]

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3306066/eu-leaders-plan-trip-beijing-july-summit-xi-jinping?module=top_story&pgtype=homepage

EU leaders plan trip to Beijing in July for summit with Xi Jinping

No date confirmed with the Chinese side as travel plan indicates serious effort to re-engage amid collapsed relationship with the US

Finbarr Berminghamin Paris

11 Apr 2025

European Union leaders are planning to travel to Beijing for a summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping in late July, according to five people familiar with the arrangement.

The plan suggests a second successive EU-China summit would be held in the Chinese capital, despite the fact that the location is supposed to rotate.

However, with Xi reluctant to make the trip to Brussels, it is understood that European Council President Antonio Costa and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen have accepted they must travel to Beijing if they want face time with the Chinese leader.

No date has been confirmed with the Chinese side, but EU leaders’ willingness to make the trip indicates a serious effort to re-engage with Beijing at a time when the bloc’s relationship with the United States has effectively collapsed.

US President Donald Trump’s return to the White House has seen him impose tariffs on EU goods, while he has performed a dramatic geopolitical volte-face on Ukraine, leaving Europeans to consider him on the side of the invading Russia in the three-year war.

Von der Leyen spoke with Chinese Premier Li Qiang on Tuesday, at the request of China’s No 2 official, while trade chief Maros Sefcovic spoke to Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao on Wednesday.

On a video call, Wang and Sefcovic agreed to “immediately start negotiations on electric vehicle price commitments, as well as discuss China-EU automotive industry investment cooperation”, according to a commerce ministry read-out.

During von der Leyen’s call with Li, the two agreed to monitor the trade diversion effects stemming from Trump’s sweeping global tariffs.

In particular, the Europeans are worried that a flood of cut-price Chinese goods that were bound for the US could be diverted to Europe and heap pressure on embattled local producers.

The fears have grown more acute this week amid successive rounds of tariffs being piled onto China’s US exports.

With both sides under severe economic pressure from the US, Brussels has put the brakes on a spiralling relationship with China, which sank to new lows in recent years over Beijing’s ties with Moscow and a list of economic grievances.

This year, von der Leyen – seen as among Europe’s most prominent hawks – has adopted a softer tone when speaking of China.

The adjusted stance was palpable again in the commission’s read-out of her call with Li, making no mention of some traditional gripes such as human rights.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez (left) meets with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing on September 9, 2024. Sanchez’s visit this week marks his third trip in two years. Photo: Xinhua via AP

For months, the Europeans have tried to convince Beijing that the summit should be held in Brussels, given that they travelled to China in 2023.

They have been told at every juncture that Xi had no intention of travelling to Europe this year.

To this, Europeans have responded that Xi does plan to be in Europe on a visit to Russia next month for a war commemoration with counterpart Vladimir Putin.

The Chinese government has also long insisted that the summit be held at Li’s level.

But the EU side has pointed to Xi’s attendance at three successive summits between 2020 and 2023 – two of which were online – as setting a precedent that they wanted to keep, particularly given that 2025 marks the 50th anniversary of diplomatic relations.

Costa, who late last year took the top job at the European Counci, the political body made up of the bloc’s 27 member states, spoke with Xi in January, at which point an invitation to Beijing is thought to have been extended.

When China’s vice-foreign minister, Hua Chunying, came to Brussels in February, she suggested that von der Leyen join Costa and they call it a summit.

At that point, the bloc had still hoped to convince Xi to come to Belgium. Now, it seems they have accepted that to meet with China’s top decision maker, they must accept his terms.

It will be part of a procession of European leaders travelling to see Xi this year.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez arrived on Thursday for his third trip in two years, while French President Emmanuel Macron plans to visit in the second half of this year, according to several official sources.

Finbarr Bermingham

Finbarr Bermingham reports on Europe-China relations for the Post. He joined the newspaper in 2018, initially on the Political Economy desk reporting primarily on global trade, economics and