EU Showdown with Chinese Leaders: We Demand Reciprocity, Responsibility and Fairness

EU leaders on Monday (September 14, 2020) expressed their serious concerns about the Hong Kong issue directly to the Chinese leadership and demanded that the EU-China relationship be based on reciprocity, responsibility and fairness.

EU Council President Michel, European Commission President Wolfgang von der Leyen and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who holds the EU presidency, attended the video summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

In a statement issued after the summit, Michel said the EU and China have real differences on a number of issues and the EU will not hide them.

The statement said that on trade issues, the EU needs to be treated more fairly and to have a more balanced relationship, which means a reciprocal and level playing field; in the digital sphere, the EU wants a free, open and secure cyberspace; on democracy and human rights issues, the EU continues to have serious concerns about Hong Kong’s national security laws, and Hong Kong’s democratic voice should be heard and its rights protected. In international security matters, the EU urged China to refrain from taking unilateral actions in the South China Sea, respect international law and avoid conflict.

Relations between the EU and China have been strained over the past year based on the many issues mentioned in the EU statement, and the outbreak of the Xinguan epidemic earlier this year has exacerbated this tension. Prior to the summit, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi visited several EU member states in an attempt to blame the decline in EU-China relations on provocations and sabotage by an outside force, namely the United States. However, EU leaders made it clear to Xi Jinping that the EU is not an arena for great power competition, and that the EU and China need to develop a bilateral relationship that will bring good results for both sides and for the world.

In a report on the China-EU summit, Chinese official media said that Xi told the EU leaders that China would not accept human rights “teachers” and that the EU should solve its own human rights problems. The report made no mention of the EU leaders’ specific concerns regarding trade parity, human rights, cybersecurity, and the South China Sea.

In the United States, Republican Federal Senator Marsha Blackburn tweeted, commenting on the EU-China summit: “Beijing’s true intentions this year, from covering up the neo-coronavirus outbreak to implementing the so-called Hong Kong National Security Act, are clear. Our EU partners have taken steps to hold China accountable on these issues.”