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Europe’s economic relations with China have deteriorated in recent years due to various factors, including allegations of possible abuse against minorities working in the Xinjiang region and high incentives from Beijing to industry that make the bloc less competitive. However, managing the situation is of particular interest, understanding the dependence that exists on some products from the Asian giant.
Some analysts have suggested that the France-European Union duo in China may adopt a “good cop, bad cop” role, with a cordial Emmanuel Macron promoting a “reset” in bilateral ties and an Ursula von der Leyen harping on the issues. thorns and the red lines of those relationships.
Indeed, the summit on Thursday, April 6, between the leaders of France and the European Union and the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, seeks to establish a new course for the bloc’s battered relations with the Asian country after years of tensions.
However, ahead of her first trip to China since taking over as European Commission president in 2019, von der Leyen asserted that Europe must “de-risk” diplomatically and economically with an increasingly tough China.
Von der Leyen clarified that the bloc could not disassociate itself from China, but it did need to “rebalance” those economic ties with the world’s second-largest economy. The task will not be easy if one takes into account the great European dependence on the Chinese market.
Today, China sells the bloc 400,000 million euros more than it buys from it per year. In addition, it supplies 20% of its imports, while the proportion of what it exports to it is much lower.
China is also the third largest foreign market of the European Union for its automobiles, and around 15% of the exports of this item from the EU go to the Asian giant.
Almost all of the supply to Europe of rare earths, lithium or magnesium, used for products ranging from batteries to wind power plants, is Chinese. And most of the solar panels used in Europe also come from China.
The French president’s entourage on his crucial trip to China included at least fifty businessmen, including top executives from Airbus – which signed an agreement to sell planes to China and establish a second assembly plant – and others such as the giant luxury Louis Vuitton or the nuclear power producer EDF.
With Reuters and EFE
