Earlier this month it looked like China’s all-consuming trade talks with the US had forced the ongoing China-European talks to be kicked into the long grass for the foreseeable future. At the time the president of the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China, Joerg Wuttke, believed that talks risked being ‘push off a cliff’ after seven years of discussions. As he stated ‘My observation is that there’s such intensity between China and the US that Europe fell off the cliff and is not seen on the radar of Beijing anymore’ adding ‘China seems to be totally absorbed by the US, cancelling meetings with Europe all the time. So we’re lacking a little bit of face-to-face engagement between them’.
However, it seems China is now preparing to turn its attention more to Europe in 2020, offering to intensify its negotiations with the EU, as well as continuing to try to get a deal done with the US. It seems progress has already been made with the much-delayed signing of the ‘geographical indication’ agreement to improve protection for 100 regionally specific products. This despite the US’s displeasure because of the potential impact on its exports.
One of the main reasons that talks were kick-started again seems to be the visit of the French President Macron. It appears that Macron helped allay fears that the EU would not take sides in the China-US trade talks and that the EU disagreed with the US approach to impose tariffs whilst defying the WTO’s rule-based multi-lateralism.
However, that does not mean to say Macron was afraid to bring up some thorny issues with his hosts. The pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong and China’s detention of Muslims in its northwest regions were subjects that were talked about, though they may have fallen on deaf ears. As the European affairs official at the foreign ministry, Zhu Jing, put it, although China was prepared to offer the ‘friendliest and warmest welcome’ to the President he warned ‘Hong Kong and Xinjiang are matters of China's internal affairs. It is not relevant to put them on the diplomatic agenda’.