As the European Union prepares tougher measures to counter what it sees as the “China shock 2.0”, a researcher with a Beijing-linked think tank has accused Brussels of clinging to a flawed narrative that China’s economic rise is an inherent threat to Europe.
The criticism came as Beijing reportedly cancelled two high-level meetings with the EU in the Chinese capital this month, including a ministerial-level digital dialogue and a visit by a senior EU diplomat, according to the Financial Times on Thursday.
China’s foreign ministry on Thursday said the two sides remained in “communications on the relevant dialogue”.
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EU sources told the South China Morning Post that both meetings – including a visit by Olof Skoog, deputy secretary general of the European External Action Service, the bloc’s diplomatic arm – had been postponed but it was not a retaliatory move by Beijing.
In an article posted on social media on Wednesday, Guo Mingxu, head of the Europe Economic Project at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, argued that Brussels was blaming China for its own failures.
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“Narratives such as ‘China’s industrial upgrading equals a threat’ and ‘China’s export growth equals a hidden danger’ have proliferated, as if China’s normal development itself were an offence – a kind of ‘original sin’ against Europe,” he wrote.