Trade again dominated discussions during this week’s visit to Belgium by China’s President Xi Jinping, despite the attempts by Chinese and European Union officials to emphasise that their relations now extend far beyond that traditional cornerstone of relations.

In a speech on Tuesday (1 April) in Bruges, Xi said China and the EU should be “the twin engines” of global economic growth. The previous day, during the first visit ever made by a Chinese president to the EU’s institutions, Xi had pressed the case for the EU and China to explore immediately the possibilities of a free-trade agreement.

Free-trade agreement

Xi’s speech came in the context of the United States’ efforts to conclude a trade deal trade in the Asia-Pacific that excludes China, and at a time when the EU is focused on an investment treaty with China, rather than a full free-trade deal. “I don’t think we have a dogmatic position about concluding an investment agreement before we could contemplate moving to a free-trade agreement,” an EU source said.

Nonetheless, EU officials have previously indicated that the investment deal is itself an ambitious target given the differences between EU and Chinese policies.

It would, the EU hopes, open up some sectors of the Chinese economy, as well as strengthening protection for Europe’s still relatively small-scale investment in China.

The visit produced advances on two trade fronts for China. On Thursday (27 March), the European Commission ended one of two investigations into sales of Chinese telecommunications equipment, and Xi left Brussels on Tuesday with a statement from the EU that it “strongly” supports China’s “swift” inclusion in talks on an international trade-in-services agreement (TiSA), an opt-in global process chaired by the World Trade Organization. The United States is wary about China’s participation.