China’s Xi Jinping declines EU invitation to anniversary summit: News report

Chinese President Xi Jinping declined an invitation to visit Brussels for a summit to mark the 50th anniversary of EU-China diplomatic ties, the Financial Times (FT) reported on March 16.

Beijing told EU officials that Premier Li Qiang would meet the presidents of the European Council and Commission instead of Mr Xi, FT said, citing two people familiar with the matter whom it did not identify.

The Chinese Premier usually attends the summit when it is held in Brussels, while the President hosts it in Beijing, but the EU wants Mr Xi to attend to commemorate half a century of relations between Beijing and the bloc, the newspaper said.

Tensions between Brussels and Beijing have grown since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, with the

EU accusing China of backing the Kremlin

, FT said. In 2024, the EU also imposed tariffs on Chinese electric vehicle imports.

China’s Foreign Ministry and the EU did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment.

“Informal discussions are ongoing, both about setting the date for the EU-China summit this year and the level of representation,” an EU official told the newspaper, while the Chinese ministry was quoted as saying it did not have any information to provide on the matter.

China, the world’s second-biggest economy, and the EU, the third-largest, spent most of 2024 exchanging barbs over allegations of overcapacity, illegal subsidies and dumping in each other’s markets.

Last October,

the EU imposed double-digit tariffs on China-made electric vehicles

after an anti-subsidy investigation, in addition to its standard car import duty of 10 per cent. The move drew loud protests from Beijing, which in return, raised market entry barriers for certain EU products such as brandy. REUTERS