Very good read @JohnDelury: What China wants from Europe

"First thing Europeans must keep in mind is that at the level of grand strategy Europe isn't a priority. US remains the unavoidable great power China confronts... Beijing in a funny way has an America First foreign policy" @JohnDelury "Strategically speaking, Europe comes after pretty much the rest of the world. European security is a function of US power, and therefore Washington, not Brussels, is the place for Beijing to look in calculating implications for its own policy."

engelsbergideas.com/notebook/what-…

If anything, Trump-Xi talks have emphasised the tight spot the EU is in going into tomorrow's talks on export controls with China.

In order to lift rare earth restrictions for a year, Trump lowered tariffs, seems to have opened the door to Chinese investments, and paused probes If Brussels wants to get the same treatment, it will have to offer something in return. But as an entirely legalistic entity, it's not clear to me that the EU could do this.

What would China want? The most obvious thing is lifting controls on ASML EUV equipment sales to China

Breaking: EU ready to retaliate vs China's rare earth controls, VDL says in Berlin

EU is "ready to use all of the instruments in our toolbox to respond" she tells Berlin forum

Comes after Macron on Thursday called on the commission to activate the anti-coercion instrument "The decisions announced by the Chinese government on 9 October pose a significant risk. In essence, these actions would severely hamper other countries from developing a rare earths industry...

STORY:

scmp.com/news/china/dip…

A quiet bombshell in Europe’s tech world

The Dutch government seems to have effectively frozen operations of Nexperia, the Chinese-owned chipmaker, citing national security, according to corporate filing today - via @zichenwanghere

open.substack.com/pub/pekingnolo… @ZichenWanghere Nexperia’s Chinese parent, Wingtech, says it was blindsided.

It claims the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs issued an order on Sept 30 barring the firm and its global subsidiaries from changing assets, staff, or IP for a year.

Disappointed to hear Kaja Kallas dismiss my July reporting as a "Chinese leak".

I'd remind Kallas that soon after my story came out, multiple respected journalists from Western publications followed with their own stories, confirming what I'd reported. I know other reporters were briefed the same info that day, but I beat them to it by publishing my story first.

Versions of the story subsequently appeared in CNN, WSJ, FT, La Matinale Européenne...

Were they also being instrumentalised by Beijing?

First Politico, now Euractiv comparing Europe's current plight to China's "century of humiliation"


Politico

"After defeat by the British in First Opium War, Qing dynasty signed a treaty in 1842 condemning China to more than 100 years of foreign oppression & colonial control of trade policy

Fast forward nearly 2 centuries, EU is starting to understand exactly how that feels"

Is EU’s global clout fading amid gruelling stand-offs with China and the US?

What really happened at the EU-China summit?

And how does the fiasco in Scotland affect Europe's global standing?

My last piece before a 2-week break 🏝️

scmp.com/news/china/dip… After tense talks in Beijing and a bruising trade blow from Washington, EU bureaucrats are heading into their August break weary and short of wins, as doubts deepen over the bloc’s global leverage.

EU officials expect there to be a joint statement with the US on yesterday's deal - not-legally binding, working to have it ASAP.

This is expected to be along the lines of the US-Indonesia statement from roughly a week ago. Here's the Indonesian statement...

whitehouse.gov/briefings-stat…

EXCLUSIVE

Wang Yi told Kaja Kallas that China cannot afford for Russia to lose the war in Ukraine, otherwise the US will divert its full focus to Beijing

scmp.com/news/china/dip… The comment during yesterday's talks in Brussels confirms what many believe to be Beijing’s position on the war but jars with China’s public utterances.

Xi is *this* close to saying "overcapacity". On the tip of his tongue!

China needs to “lawfully regulate enterprises’ disorderly low-price competition, guide companies to improve product quality, promote the orderly exit of outdated production capacity”

scmp.com/economy/china-… In addressing the price wars plaguing many industries in China, the country’s top leadership has resorted to a phrase rarely seen at a high-level meeting, saying that enterprises’ “disorderly low-price competition” needs to be regulated.

NEW: Some bonkers numbers in China's May customs data.

Detailed figures came out Fri when I was off, so took a deep dive today

First big picture EU stuff:

China's EU exports up 12%
China's EU imports down 2.37%

There is a 22% increase in the EU's China deficit in May alone Earlier in the month we saw some big jumps in China's exports to the big EU markets

China's exports to Germany up 21.5%
China's exports to France up 24.1%
China's exports to Netherlands up 7.1%

But I did the sums for the 27 and it is pretty mad...

New Chinese trade data out today for May might deepen anxiety over trade diversion in Europe.

China's exports to the US down 34.52%
China's exports to the EU up 12%
China's exports to Germany up 21.5%
China's exports to France up 24.1%
China's exports to Netherlands up 7.1% This is an extension of the theme noticed in April despite the Geneva deal that lowered US-China tariffs

https://x.com/fbermingham/status/1920794105438671188

NEW: ‘There are limits’: the problems with China’s efforts to patch things up with Europe

Trump has handed Europe to China on a plate, but Beijing's charm offensive has left the EU cold.

A long read from me.

Illustration by Lau Ka-kuen

scmp.com/news/china/dip… There have been many signs of a messy divorce between Europe and the US since Trump’s return, but one of the most stark arrived earlier this month.

A survey of more than 100,000 people found that in Europe, net perceptions of China have overtaken those of the US.

China's trade data for April came out this morning.

Have just had the chance to do some sums based on last April's numbers, and for Europe it is an absolute bloodbath.

EU exports to China are down by huge numbers, while China's exports to EU members keep surging

🧵 Monthly figures April 2025 vs April 2024

China's EU imports: -16.46%
China's German imports: -12.2%
China's French imports: -12.9%
China's Dutch imports: - 22.9%
China's Italian imports: -17.66%

Zelensky: Chinese citizens were working at a drone production site in Russia, suggests Moscow may have “stolen” drone technology from China.

Comments come days after he said China was supplying weapons and gunpowder to Russia

scmp.com/news/world/rus… Ukraine’s foreign ministry said it had summoned Chinese Ambassador Ma Shengkun and expressed Ukraine’s “serious concerns” over Chinese involvement in the war.

Wang Yi calling European counterparts to try rallying them against Trump

1. With UK's David Lammy

"In context of rampant unilateral bullying, China + UK have responsibility to maintain the international order formed after WWII, with UN at its core + multilateral trading system" Wang:

"This practice of regressing state-to-state relations to the law of the jungle is a historical reversal, unpopular and unsustainable, and is being resisted and opposed by more and more countries."

China's March trade data out

Continuation of some unwanted trends that'll stoke EU trade diversion angst

China's EU exports⬆️10.29%
China's EU imports⬇️7.5%
China's German exports⬆️ 11.9%
China's German imports⬇️ 6.5%
China's French exports ⬆️4.5%
China's French imports ⬇️2.6% This chart shows the trend over the first quarter of 2025 (all stats in value terms, year-on-year)

China's EU exports⬆️3.7%
China's EU imports⬇️6.3%
China's German exports⬆️ 6%
China's German imports⬇️ 5.2%
China's French exports ⬆️0.5%
China's French imports ⬇️5%

New from me:

As the US and China wage superpower trade war, the EU senses more leverage over Beijing

scmp.com/news/china/dip… When French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot went to Beijing last month, he gave his Chinese counterparts an ultimatum: do something about hefty tariffs on cognac imports and the liquor’s abrupt removal from your duty-free stores, or our entire “strategic agenda” will be paused.

Late night SCOOP!

EU leaders plan trip to Beijing in July for summit with Xi Jinping

VDL + Costa plan comes after they failed to convince Xi to come to Brussels

scmp.com/news/china/dip… The plan suggests a second successive EU-China summit would be held in the Chinese capital, despite the fact that the location is supposed to rotate.

VDL and Charles Michel went to Beijing in 2023, there was no summit last year

Breaking

In response to Trump's tariffs on steel & aluminium, the European Commission announced 2 tranches of retaliation covering €26bn in US goods 1. Suspended retaliation from Trump 1.0 will lapse on April 1

2. New measures in response to the additional Trump duties totalling €18bn, in mid Apr

We're bang in the middle of global upheaval that's sweeping all before it. This could include EU-China relations

We're waiting for the *actual* change, but there's been lots of noise, so here's a long thread on what's happened this year and where we may go

Anatomy of a detente? As 2025 began, EU-China ties were in a terrible place. Brussels was fed up of Beijing's ties with Moscow and its intransigence on economic issues

But with Trump coming, talk of a trade war was parked as both sides awaited the inevitable change.

scmp.com/news/china/art…