The 25th UE-China summit in Beijing started with very low expectations. And the forecasts on the eve of the summit – flash, because it was reduced to a single day compared to the two days initially expected – confirmed the thesis of several analysts: between Brussels and Beijing there are no shared future prospects.
The only meeting points that the president of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Council Antonio Costa and the high representative Kaja Kallas have found with the Chinese president Xi Jinping and the Premier Li Qiang are on rare and climate lands. Let’s start from the latter. By the joint press release issued at the end of the Summit in Beijing, China and EU they undertake to “intensify” the action to face and combat climate change as part of the Paris agreement. But on some knots – from Chinese commercial practices to international tensions – Beijing and Brussels still seem distant.
Ursula von der Leyen: “A balanced commercial relationship is needed”
“Today’s meeting marks the 50 -year anniversary of our diplomatic agreements, the European Union and China are two of the three main economic actors in the world and our cooperation is fundamental” explained Von der Leyen. The president of the EU executive stressed that currently the European Union is the main economic partner of China (while Beijing for Brussels is the third), with bilateral exchanges of goods amounting to 2 billion euros per day.
Dear Premier Li, Europe Believes in The Power of Free Trade to Drive Prosperity.
But it has to be fair.
I know we need to address market access, OVERCAPACITY AND EXPORT CONTROL.
Rebalancing is Also in the interest of Stronger 🇪🇺🇨🇳 Relations ↓ https://t.co/uo9aytxgy
– Ursula von der leyen (@vonderleyen) July 24, 2025
A few hours before the start of the summit in Beijing, the leader of the European executive had not hidden the doubts about commercial imbalances. Although in 2024 commercial exchanges reached a value of 730 billion euros, the deficit touched 305 billion. A dictated deficit – according to Brussels – with a growing Chinese surcharge, fueled by state subsidies, which contributes an unequal pitch for European companies. From the summit, the request for the European Union to China to carry out “concrete progress” on access to the market, reaffirming the need for a more balanced relationship between the two economies, emerges clear. In the final press release, Brussels asked for the removal of barriers to entry for European companies to strategic sectors such as meat, cosmetics and drugs. At the center of the tensions also the retired measures imposed by Beijing on European exports of Brandy, pig meat and dairy products, taken in response to the European imposition of new duties on Chinese electric cars.
Revised with China an important scheme for the rare lands exports
Criticisms have also arrived on the recent checks imposed by Beijing at the export of rare lands, strategic materials for the technological industry. According to Brussels, the restrictions interrupted the global supply chains and caused temporary stops in the production lines of the European automotive industry in May. However, customs data show a more positive picture: in the month of May, 1,364 tons of rare lands have reached European ports, marking a 245 percent increase compared to April, but still a 35 percent drop on an annual basis. Only in the last joke of the summit, the two parts reached an agreement on a new “supply mechanism for enhanced export”, designed to face European concerns on Chinese controls to the exports of Rare Terre. “In other words, in the event of bottlenecks, this mechanism to support the revised supply chain can immediately verify and solve the problem or the question that presents itself,” said the president of the UEULA von der Leyen Commission.
For its part, Beijing claims that the current commercial imbalance can only be rebalanced if Europe agrees to export the most advanced technologies to China for the production of semiconductors. However, a position that finds the clear opposition of European officials, according to which high-end machinery have dual-use applications (both civil and military) and therefore remain subject to restrictions. Brussels also underlines that, net of a limited number of controls subjected to control, European exports of equipment for the manufacture of semiconductors to China have however grown significantly.
The president of the EU Commission underlined the global weight of the two economies, stating that the management of the bilateral relationship will profoundly influence “economic prosperity, national security and global stability”. For Von der Leyen, a sustainable relationship requires “reciprocity and shared advantages”, and a “real commitment from China to face European concerns”.
XI’s answer: “The current challenges that the EU is faced do not come from China”
The replica of the Chinese president Xi Jinping came with stopped but conciliatory tones. XI invited Brussels to make the “right strategic choice” in an international context that has called “more uncertain and turbulent than ever”. “In the face of an accelerated global transformation, which had not been seen for a century, Chinese and European leaders must demonstrate vision and leadership”, said, according to what reported by the official Xinhua agency. In his opinion, the relationships between China and the EU are now “at a new crucial point in history”. XI, without directly appointing the United States, pointed the finger at the head of the White House Donald Trump for his commercial policy. “The current challenges that the EU tackles do not come from China,” said the Chinese president.
XI has relaunched the idea of a stable and long -term cooperation, firmly condemning the pushes to the decoupling of the European Union. He also accused Brussels of making excessive use of commercial tools, fueling distrust. Not surprisingly, in the same hours, Beijing publicly attacked the new European sanctions imposed against two Chinese banks, accused of facilitating commercial flows towards Russia: the measures were included in the 18th pack of penalties against Moscow. It is no coincidence that, in fact, the Union also asked China to work for a “right peace” in Ukraine and stressed that military aid provided to Russia from North Korea, a country on which Beijing can exercise considerable influence, represent “considerable risks for safety”, in Europe and Eastern Asia.
The (wrong) idea of a rapprochement between China and EU
In the previous months some signals of relaxation had made that Beijing and Brussels finally found an agreement on commercial and diplomatic fronts. This is because with the US duties – climbed up to 145 percent in the first half of April – Beijing had shown interest to get closer to Europe: at the end of April, the Popular Republic revoked the sanctions against a few MEPs, imposed in 2021, thus removing one of the main obstacles to the ratification of the global investment agreement (CAI) – frozen in 2021 -. But the commercial truce reached with Washington pushed Beijing to loosen the grip on the relationship with Brussels.
According to Professor which Hongjian, an expert in foreign policy at Beijing Foreign Studies University, at the beginning of the second term of the American president Donald Trump, there was a greater consensus between Brussels and Beijing on the need to cooperate in the face of American pressure. “Recently the situation has changed: the EU continued to compromise with the United States and this has weakened the momentum for a rapprochement with China,” he said. In addition, the prospect of a commercial agreement between Brussels and Washington to fix the duties on European exports to 15 percent – compared to 30 percent threatened by Trump – has further cooled the Chinese interest for a strategic convergence with the EU.
