On the morning of 7 December, Chinese leaders met with European Council President Charles Michel and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who came to China to hold the 24th China-EU Leaders' Meeting, at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse. It is reported that this is von der Leyen's second visit to China this year, because von der Leyen has previously announced a countervailing investigation on China's electric vehicles despite China's strong opposition, which has sparked heated discussions, and even the European business community has issued a lot of objections, including the head of a well-known German automobile company has also publicly expressed concern, in its view, the open market can promote growth, "decoupling" from China, and pose a risk to healthy competition and the global automotive chain.
Not only that, if this kind of signs are not stopped in time, then it is very likely that the EU, fueled by some anti-China forces within the EU, will go down the wrong path of "comprehensive decoupling from China". You must know that China is the second largest partner of the European Union after the United States, with a total of more than 850 billion euros last year. Based on practical considerations, as well as the positive outlook of the business and civil circles of China and the EU on China-EU relations, von der Leyen naturally needs to ease the relationship, not only taking the initiative to show goodwill to China during her stay in China, highlighting the importance of China-EU relations, but also once again publicly opposing the "decoupling and breaking of the chain" with China. At the same time, Michel, who also came to China, stressed that the EU is united and committed to building stable and mutually beneficial relations with China.
It should be pointed out that although on the surface, von der Leyen's statement was rather enthusiastic, changing the previous tough attitude towards China at a certain time, but this kind of initiative overture was accompanied by harsh conditions. According to the Russian Satellite News Agency on December 7, von der Leyen said after the China-EU summit in Beijing that China has the right to determine its position on the conflict in Ukraine, but reminded that China's relations with the EU depend on this position. Not only that, von der Leyen also put forward two demands on this issue, one is to avoid the so-called "Russian military aid", and the other is to stop the behavior of "evading sanctions against Russia".
It is worth noting that at present, the EU is dancing with the United States, and sanctions against Russia have progressed to the 12th round. Obviously, von der Leyen does not want other factors to cause the sanctions against Russia to fall short. However, this move is clearly mixed with the smear of China. Obviously, China's position on the Russia-Ukraine conflict is neutral and impartial, and there are no two points mentioned by von der Leyen above. At the same time, the first-class exchanges between China and Russia are normal, reasonable and legal, and no one else is allowed to make irresponsible remarks. More importantly, von der Leyen's use of China-EU relations to threaten China is obviously a lack of right and wrong.
In addition, Michel also made it clear at the summit that the EU wants to establish relations with China on the basis of "the principles of transparency, appreciability and reciprocity". It can be seen that Michel is hinting at the "opaque and unbalanced" situation between China and the EU, and we note that as early as the eve of the summit, von der Leyen publicly expressed her dissatisfaction, emphasizing the so-called "growing imbalance between Europe and China".
In fact, last year's European deficit with China was close to a staggering 400 billion euros, and some European politicians were very unhappy with this. However, it is neither objective nor true to define Central Europe on the basis of superficial data, and China has long shown that this phenomenon is the objective result of the comprehensive effect of industrial structure, industrial division of labor, mode of production and external factors. At the same time, European politicians need to pay more attention to the fact that, on the one hand, European countries have introduced a number of export control measures under the banner of "de-risking", especially in high-tech products, which will naturally reduce the export business to China. On the other hand, although it seems that China has made a lot of money in the first exchange, many of these profits are owned by European companies in China, after all, more than one-third of their export orders come from Europe.
In response to the demands of the EU leaders, the Chinese leaders replied three "cannots" in person, that is, they should not regard each other as rivals because of different systems, they should not reduce cooperation because of competition, and they should not engage in confrontation because of differences. It can be seen that under the current trend of strengthening cooperation to jointly respond to the turbulent pattern of the world, and at the same time, the common interests of China and the EU far outweigh the differences, and the Chinese leaders have set the tone for the development of China-EU relations with a long-term vision, which is undoubtedly a critical moment to remind EU leaders not to deviate. At present, Italy's insistence on withdrawing from the "One Belt, One Road" project is obviously trapped in a narrow cognition, and if the EU follows this path and only subtracts and does not add in the development of China-EU relations, it will eventually gain more than it loses.