SHANGHAI It is in the best interests of the people of China and Europe to protect the rule-based worldwide order, European Council President Donald Tusk told Chinese Premier Li Keqiang on Tuesday ahead of an arbitration ruling from the Hague on the disputed South China Sea.
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European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said at the business summit that the EU was willing to enhance its partnership with China and accelerate negotiations on the EU-China investment treaty.
Juncker said the steel industry in Europe faced a serious problem and added that China’s approach would determine whether it won market economy status, which would prevent strict tariffs being placed on its exports.
Given that the meeting coincides with the ruling of the Permanent Court of Arbitration on the Philippines’ case against China over the South China Sea dispute, Chinese people will read carefully what the European Union says.
Beijing says reducing overcapacity and cutting state-subsidies to the steel sector are top priorities in its economic reform drive.
Li also said that China was willing to speed up negotiations with the European Union to secure bilateral investment deals, adding that the country’s growth was sound but not yet strong.
European leaders have sought to allay Chinese fears that Britain’s withdrawal, known as “Brexit”, would harm economic ties between China and the EU and cause economic instability.
Overcapacity in the steel industry needlessly pits Chinese and European workers against each other, Malmström said.
China, for its part, maintains that the problem is global in nature, and that there are also limits to the steps it can take at the governmental level.
In the past year, Chinese authorities have launched an unprecedented crackdown on lawyers and human rights defenders, passed a law that they said would help NGOs but that subjects them to police supervision, and enacted a national security law that particularly targets online activity.
The outcome of the vote to leave the EU “has created a new situation which the United Kingdom and the European Union will have to address soon”, Juncker said in a letter published on his Twitter account. We will stick to our worldwide obligations, this is beyond doubt.
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He also called on China and Europe to cooperate more in finance, innovation and infrastructure connections.
