Two senior European officials visit China mid-year

China’s state-backed Global Times newspaper quoted the country’s ambassador to the European Union Fu Cong as saying that European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Charles Michel may visit China in the first half of 2023.

In an interview published on Friday, Fu said that preparations for the visit of the senior European officials were under way and that “frequent high-level bilateral visits” between China and the EU were expected to start soon.
The two sides have taken different positions on the year-old war in Ukraine, with EU officials criticizing Beijing’s refusal to describe the conflict as a war or to call for Russia’s withdrawal from Ukrainian territory.

Fu said in the interview that the bloc’s anger at China over Ukraine “is very unreasonable” and that China does not want the issue to affect the development of relations with the bloc.
After China’s Foreign Ministry published a paper on Friday outlining Beijing’s position on the war, Europe’s top diplomat to China, Jorge Toledo, told reporters in Beijing that points in the paper were worrying.
Fu said in December that the war had put China in a very difficult position in its relations with the European Union, after Michel urged Chinese President Xi Jinping to use his country’s influence with Russia over the war in Ukraine, during his visit to Beijing in early December. .