Five States, Including Saudi Arabia, Launch UN Group of Friends for Digital Cooperation

Five States, Including Saudi Arabia, Launch UN Group of Friends for Digital Cooperation

EU Does Not Want to Decouple from China but Must Protect Itself, Says EU Trade Chief

The European Union has no intention to decouple from China but needs to protect itself when its openness is abused, the bloc's Executive Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis said, as both sides look to cool rising tensions over geopolitics and trade.

Relations have become tense due to Beijing's ties with Moscow after Russian forces swept into Ukraine, and the EU's push to rely less on the world's second-largest economy.

The bloc posted record bilateral trade with China last year, but it is "very unbalanced", Dombrovskis said on Saturday in a speech at the annual Bund Summit conference in Shanghai, citing a trade deficit of almost 400 billion euros ($426.08 billion).

Dombrovskis, who is also the bloc's trade commissioner, is on a four-day visit to China seeking more balanced economic ties with the EU.

He arrived just over a week after the European Commission said it would investigate whether to impose punitive tariffs to protect European producers from cheaper Chinese electric vehicle imports it says are benefiting from state subsidies.

The trip is designed to renew dialogue with China after the COVID-19 pandemic with both sides looking to cool tensions over issues