Euronews’e confirmed on Wednesday that EU trade chief Maroš Šefčovič’in will meet with his Chinese counterpart trade envoy Li Chenggang on the sidelines of the OECD ministerial meeting in Paris’ on Thursday.
The visit comes at a time when EU-China relations remain strained, with Brussels’ trying to solve China’'s overcapacity problem and Beijing’le trying to solve its record 359.9 billion-euro trade deficit.
Following AB’'s announcement of the Industrial Accelerator Act and the Cyber Security Act, which could exclude Chinese companies from the EU market, China said, was threatenedThe retaliation fuels fears of a trade war between the two trading partners.
Tensions escalated last week when EU commissioners met to discuss the bloc's strategy for the Asian giant.
In a statement after the meeting, the Commission said that the current state of the “Trade and investment relationship is not sustainable, ” said.
Euronews’e, an EU official, said a majority of the Commission members had agreed to strengthen AB’'s commercial defence tools to counter China’. The proposals will be presented to EU leaders at a summit in ’ on 18 June.
However, member states are divided over EU’'s China policy. A document signed by France, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands and Lithuania called for faster use of tariffs and quotas on imports that threaten EU industrial sectors, with China being ’'s main target. The idea is to create equal conditions against Chinese trade practices, which many in the European ’ describe as unfair.
Among the countries that have adopted a different attitude is Germany, whose policy is to protect their companies' access to the Chinese market despite facing a deep trade deficit.
Meanwhile, the Commission said it would continue its relations with China. There are reports that Trade Minister Wang Wentao’ may visit Brussels’ on 28 and 29 June, but the visit has not yet been made public.
