China said Wednesday European Union export policies towards Beijing do not "make sense", on the eve of a high-level summit in the Chinese capital, that will take place over to days from December 7-8.
"If the EU imposes severe restrictions on the export of high-tech products to China on the one hand, and hopes to significantly increase exports to China on the other, I'm afraid it doesn't make sense," foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said.
European Union chief Ursula von der Leyen, top EU diplomat Josep Borrell and Charles Michel, the president of the European Council, will be in Beijing on Thursday for the EU-China summit.
It will be the first in-person summit between the Brussels chiefs and Chinese President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Qiang since 2019, and one of the key talking points will be trade.
'Indispensable partner'
Von der Leyen told French press agency AFP in an interview ahead of the talks that "European leaders will not tolerate over time an imbalance in the trade relationship".
"But we prefer to have negotiated solutions," she added.
Wang on Wednesday told a regular press conference that "China is a trustworthy and indispensable partner of the EU.
"Properly handling differences through dialogue and consultations is an important thing to go through for the development of China-EU relations," he added.
"We hope that the European side will work with China to meet each other halfway, create a positive atmosphere for the successful holding of the China-EU leaders' meeting, and make joint efforts for the healthy and stable development of China-EU relations."
'Empty exercise'
Meanwhile, critics have called on EU leaders to take a more critical stance towards Beijing when it comes to human rights, with New York-based Human Rights Watch executive director Tirana Hassan saying that “the EU has more leverage than ever before” to help bring about change, but "this is not going to come from wishful thinking."
She added:"Human rights for the EU in its relations with China risk becoming an empty exercise without real ambition, something to bring up just so leaders can say the matter was mentioned."
#China is not “too big” to criticize for its human rights horrors, nor “too powerful” to take action on.
— Human Rights Watch (@hrw) December 5, 2023
EU leaders simply need to overcome their self-fulfilling belief in their own failure – and try.
Read @astroehlein in today's Daily Brief: https://t.co/bLuwHB2xqC pic.twitter.com/5tOv9BQqw1
"The EU-China human rights dialogues are the best example. After more than three dozen rounds of these meetings over the years, they have achieved nothing. The situation has only deteriorated in China over that time. In fact, the regular talks are worse than pointless, because they give Beijing a fig leaf."
(With newswires)
