European Commission officials have travelled to Beijing to press Chinese authorities to slow a rapid rise in exports to the EU, in talks meant to head off a rockier trade dispute before an October deadline.
Denis Redonnet, the Commission's top trade enforcement official, led the delegation into meetings with Chinese counterparts. The EU's chief trade official, Ditte Juul Jorgensen, is due to travel to China later this month to judge whether Beijing is prepared to offer real concessions, amid growing unease in Brussels that the relationship has been drifting from cooperation toward rivalry.
A surplus growing against almost every EU country
At the centre of the talks is a rapid rise in Chinese shipments to the bloc. In July, China widened its trade surplus against all but three EU member states compared with a year earlier, a trend Brussels considers untenable if left unaddressed.
Jorgensen said the talks had found an engaged China on the other side of the table, though she cautioned that the challenges involved remain very significant. She also pointed to a broader worry inside the Commission over what she called increasing concentration dependencies in strategic sectors, which she described as a risk to the EU. The talks are aimed at finding a diplomatic path forward before the autumn, when both sides could otherwise be pulled into a round of retaliatory trade measures.