[ABS News
Service/08.102026]
The European Union's top commerce
official was due in China on Thursday for talks aimed at bringing
both sides back from the brink of a mutually damaging
trade war, Agence France-Presse news service
reported.
The EU last year ran a trade deficit of around a billion euros ($1.1 billion) a day with China,
caused by what many in the bloc see as Beijing's unfair trade practices.
But Europe can ill afford to anger China in case it throttles
supplies of rare earth minerals
that are vital for the continent's industrial sector.
The two days of discussions by EU trade commissioner Maros Sefcovic
in Beijing come just as France
and Germany, the bloc's
two biggest powers, threaten
to up the ante.
According to a letter
seen by AFP on Monday, President Emmanuel Macron
and Chancellor Friedrich
Merz have urged the EU to ready a “credible instrument” to respond quickly to any escalation by Beijing, although China was not mentioned explicitly. The proposed weapon – to be discussed at an EU leaders' summit next week – would give the European Commission the power to respond
to a trade aggression within
days.
China immediately fired a warning shot after
the letter, urging Paris and Berlin on Tuesday
to steer clear of “protectionist” measures.
“We hope that France and Germany, as major economies in the world,
will uphold openness, cooperation and free trade,” the commerce ministry said in a statement.
“They
should avoid going down the wrong path in the wrong way, only to ultimately suffer
the consequences themselves.