China's Xi 'declines' EU invitation to anniversary summit

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

Beijing told EU officials that Premier Li Qiang would meet the presidents of the European Council and Commission instead of Xi, the 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 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, the FT said. Last year, the European Union 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, its third-largest, spent most of 2024 exchanging barbs over allegations of overcapacity, illegal subsidies and dumping in each other’s markets.

In 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%. The move drew loud protests from Beijing, which in return, raised market entry barriers for certain EU products such as brandy.