
The European Union’s top diplomat Kaja Kallas plans to meet Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Munich next month, in what is likely to be the first formal sit-down between the two sides since a changing of the guard in Brussels.
A meeting at the annual Munich Security Conference between February 14 and 16 will mark Kallas’ first face-to-face encounter with China’s leadership since she became the EU’s high representative for foreign affairs and security policy in December, according to people familiar with the plan.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen briefly met Chinese Vice-Premier Ding Xuexiang on Tuesday at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in what her spokeswoman confirmed was “just a handshake … when they crossed coming out and into the speaker’s room”.
But there has been no substantive interaction with Beijing since von der Leyen’s new commission was established late last year. European Council President Antonio Costa’s call with Chinese President Xi Jinping this month remains the sole calendar engagement this year, although he leads a separate institution.
Kallas’ predecessor, Josep Borrell, met Wang several times at the Munich conference, one of the premier events on the diplomatic calendar, providing ministers with a forum to meet sometimes dozens of their counterparts in a flurry of activity.
Working-level talks about an EU-China summit this year are continuing, although no date has been set. It remains to be seen whether the Europeans can convince Xi to come to Brussels.
Von der Leyen and ex-council chair Charles Michel visited Beijing in late 2023 and had a short meeting with Xi, but the Chinese side has been insistent that the bulk of the summit traditionally takes place at Premier Li Qiang’s level.
Since the election victory of US President Donald Trump in November, EU-China relations have generally been in a holding pattern. Talks on resolving a trade dispute on electric vehicles have paused, while Beijing’s expected retaliation for EU tariffs on the EVs has not fully materialised.
EU sources said both sides were waiting to see what path the Trump administration took early on before committing to any change in their own bilateral relations.
Trump is expected to usher in a new phase in global tensions. He has railed against the United States’ respective trade deficits with the EU and China and has threatened tariffs on both.
The European Commission plans to offer to buy more US energy, hi-tech goods and agricultural products as a means of reducing the deficit, but has also lined up retaliatory tariffs to respond to Trump’s threat.
The commission is also expected to pitch a loose partnership with Trump on tackling some mutual transatlantic grievances with China, including industrial overcapacity, as well as the use of transnational subsidies, which Brussels sees as a strategy from Beijing to circumvent EU duties on Chinese imports.
There is some hope in Brussels that the sides can work together on economic security instruments designed to curb China’s development of certain hi-tech sectors.
Last week, the commission moved forward with plans to screen outbound investments in the artificial intelligence, quantum computing and semiconductor sectors. It instructed the EU’s 27 member states to start monitoring and recording private investments in those fields over a 15-month period.
Brussels hopes that it can convince Trump that allowing Russia to defeat Ukraine would send the wrong message to Beijing.
“Our adversaries are cooperating and coordinating their actions against us. We must work together against the axis of upheaval,” Kallas said in a speech on Wednesday.
“The biggest concern for the United States is China. But the fact is that if we do not get Russia right, we will not get China right either. China is closely watching how the transatlantic community responds to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.”
At the same time, there are real fears in Europe that the bloc will be squeezed between China and the US.
“We have entered a new era of harsh geostrategic competition. We are dealing with continent-sized powers. And they engage with each other based mostly on interests,” said von der Leyen in a speech at the European Parliament on Wednesday.
“This new dynamic will dominate more the relations between global actors. The rules of engagement are changing. Some in Europe may not like this new reality, but we must deal with it. Our values do not change. But to defend them, some things must change,” she added.
Earlier in the week, she left the door open for improved ties with Beijing, even as she warned an audience at the World Economic Forum in Davos about “a second China shock … because of state-sponsored overcapacity”.
“I believe that we must engage constructively with China to find solutions in our mutual interest,” von der Leyen said. “2025 marks 50 years of our union’s diplomatic relations with China. I see it as an opportunity to engage and deepen our relationship with China, and where possible, even to expand our trade and investment ties.”
South China Morning Post