China cozying up to Europe amidst Trump tariffs

As reported by Reuters, China and the EU will be opening up an annual meeting with each other as China continues to seek an anti-US alliance as a countermeasure for US President Trump’s ongoing tariff battle.

Key quotes

“The meeting is expected to produce a modest communique affirming the commitment of both sides to the multilateral trading system. Leaders failed to find sufficient consensus for such a joint statement after meetings in 2016 and 2017.  This year’s talks come with the United States and China increasingly mired in a trade dispute with no sign of negotiations on the horizon.

U.S. President Donald Trump has warned he may ultimately impose tariffs on more than $500 billion worth of Chinese goods – nearly the total amount of U.S. imports from China last year.  China has sworn to retaliate at each step.

European envoys say they have sensed a greater urgency from China since last year to find like-minded countries willing to stand up against Trump’s “America First” policies.  China’s ambassador to the European Union, Zhang Ming, said in a commentary in the ruling Communist Party’s official People’s Daily newspaper on Sunday that the focus of the meeting would be how China-EU relations could become a “standard of stability” amid the “din of unilateralism and protectionism”.  China and Europe are “two major forces of stability and responsibility” that support inclusive globalization, Zhang said.

But the world’s largest trading bloc, while sharing Trump’s concern over Chinese trade abuses if not his prescription of tariffs, has largely rebuffed efforts by China to pressure it into a strong stance against Trump.  There is deep scepticism in the EU about China’s actual commitment to opening its market further, as well as concern that it seeks to divide the bloc with its economic influence in Eastern Europe.  Nonetheless, European officials suggest that Trump, who has also targeted Europe with tariffs, has created a widow of opportunity to show that EU-China relations can be a bulwark for global trade.”