Michel and Xi talk past each other

During three hours of talks in Beijing with Xi Jinping, EU Council President Charles Michel addresses the current protests as well as the war in Ukraine, but achieves few concrete concessions. Xi, on the other hand, does not want to see any „real strategic conflicts or differences“. Ultimately, it only reveals how deep the rift between the EU and China currently is.

The relationship between the EU and China is considered rather poor. So all eyes were fixed eagerly on the meeting between EU Council President Charles Michel and China’s President Xi Jinping in Beijing on Thursday. The meeting took only three hours. That alone said something about the quality of relations.

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