China quick to call Europe a partner – but talks on investment agreement ‘moving at snail’s pace’

Talks between China and the European Union on a potential investment agreement are reportedly not making progress, despite Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi again stressing that Beijing wanted to be Europe’s partner, not its rival.

In a meeting with European Council President Charles Michel in Brussels on Tuesday, Wang said that “both sides should strengthen the consciousness of being partners” and “clarify we are partners but not competitors”, state news agency Xinhua reported.

But scathing remarks attributed to a top EU trade official suggested that the Brussels talks were being jeopardised by China moving too slowly to make any progress.

“At the moment we are not yet on a pathway to that,” Sabine Weyand, the European Commission’s director general for trade, said in Brussels on Tuesday, the Financial Times reported. “We are moving at a snail’s pace on the investment agreement.”

The report said diplomats were describing the investment treaty negotiations as part of a broader power struggle ahead of a summit between China and EU member states next September in Germany, when the host nation will hold the European bloc’s six-month rotating presidency.

China’s new focus on Europe has been the main theme for Wang during his first trip to Europe since a new EU leadership took office this month.

Wang had expressed upbeat sentiments on Monday, when he said that concluding a China-EU investment agreement would be the “top economic agenda”.

“We also hope that the EU will keep to market economy principles and create a level playing field for Chinese enterprises, not least by upholding fairness and justice and making well-informed and independent judgments on 5G issues,” he said, referring to warnings by the United States about Chinese telecoms equipment maker Huawei.

Wang’s remarks were felt to be “testing the water to see if the new EU leadership would drop its previous reference to China as a systemic rival”, an EU source said.

Another source with knowledge of the meeting said Michel had put the emphasis on “respecting a level playing field and reciprocity” while the two sides were hammering out an investment agreement.

There have been concerns in Europe that the EU was less of a priority for Beijing during its ­protracted trade war with ­the US, but there has also been wariness there of China’s expanding influence – particularly through Chinese investment in central and eastern European nations.

China and the EU will hold their annual summit in Beijing next April, when Chinese Premier Li ­Keqiang will meet the new EU leadership. Chinese President Xi Jinping will then travel to Leipzig in Germany next September for the summit with the 27 leaders of the bloc’s member states.

China and the EU pledged in April to make “decisive progress” in their negotiations this year in the hope of reaching what they called an “ambitious” investment agreement next year.