Ambassador Toledo speaks at China Aviation & Aerospace Forum

Dear Mr. Mayor of Zhuhai,

Dear attendees present with us here today in Beijing,

Dear viewers online and on Phoenix TV,

Good morning. Zao’an.

It is a pleasure to address the China Aviation and Aerospace Forum today, which is taking place in parallel to the Airshow in Zhuhai. It is doubly befitting to speak to you as ambassador of the European Union, as aviation and aerospace are by their very nature cross-border endeavours, while the European Union itself has always been a project to transcend borders.

Sino-European cooperation in the sky and in space has long been of practical and symbolic relevance. The first cooperation between China and the European Space Agency, ESA, dates back 43 years to 1979, while cooperation between the EU and China on civil aviation goes back 23 years to 1999.

Chinese aviation has soared to great heights in recent decades, with passenger numbers growing from just 13 million in 1989, to 660 million in 2019, just before the pandemic, making it the largest aviation market in the world at that time.

Throughout the years, the European aircraft manufacturing industry has been, and continues to be, a reliable partner to China. The European Union is China’s largest supplier of aviation products, with a well-deserved reputation for the quality and reliability of both its goods and its services.

The Chinese aviation industry too has made great achievements in recent years and I congratulate the recent certification of the AC352 helicopter and the C919 narrowbody aircraft, both of them with the proud participation of European firms in their development.

But whether the final product is Chinese, or European, or from anywhere else in the world, aircraft are a quintessentially global product for a globalized world. Much like the aviation industry’s final products, its supply chains cross borders easily. This is why the European Union remains committed to an open world economy, also in the field of civil aviation.

In government-to-government cooperation, there have also been significant milestones between the EU and China in recent years, most notably the signing of a bilateral aviation safety agreement between the two countries in 2019, aiming to boost the two economies’ cooperation on aviation safety and environmental compatibility.

For some years now, experts and decision makers from both sides collaborate in the EU-China Aviation Partnership Project or “APP”, to cooperate on topics as important as airworthiness, operations and air traffic management. Let me highlight in particular the cooperation on sustainable aviation, perhaps the largest challenge facing the industry in the coming decades. While Europe aims to be a forerunner in the field, in line with its ambitions as part of the European Green Deal, we highly welcome collaboration with China on the topic.

Aviation is key to realizing Europe’s ambitions on connectivity, bringing together people, countries and livelihoods worldwide. Having flown to China from Europe twice since becoming ambassador less than three months ago, I have experienced for myself that Chinese aviation is going through a difficult time. While air traffic in Europe is back up to around 87% of its pre-pandemic level, Chinese flights remain very restricted. We look forward to the recovery of predictable air links between Europe and China. Back in 2019, there were over 80 airline routes between China and the European Union.

I move up finally, and literally, from aviation into space. Chinese and European astronomers and poets alike have, for millennia, looked up at the sky with wonder and admiration. It is therefore fitting that European astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti quoted the ancient Chinese calligrapher Wang Xizhi from the International Space Station saying that “Looking up, I see the immensity of the cosmos; bowing my head, I look at the multitude of the world.”

Looking from space at the multitude of the world, both China and Europe will see many common challenges that the world faces today. But space also provides ample opportunities to help the world address many of these challenges. This is why the European Space Programme, focuses in particular on the use of space technology to help fight climate change, stimulate technological innovation, and provide socio-economic benefits to citizens. The EU knows that China too shares these goals as it pushes on into space.

China and the EU are already cooperating on space topics, such as frequency interference prevention and relaying of distress calls from emergency beacons. The European Space Agency cooperates with the China National Space Administration on a number of scientific missions, notably the joint SMILE solar physics mission and the Einstein Probe X-ray astrophysics mission.

At the same time, the EU is strongly committed to prevent an arms race in outer space. We therefore welcome that, at the latest General Assembly in September, all Member States of the UN, including of course the EU and China, voted in favour of two Resolutions: one on the Prevention of an arms race in outer space, and another on Transparency and confidence-building measures.

An increasingly important topic in the use of outer space is space traffic management, as key orbits become increasingly polluted with space debris. As the representative of one important space player to another, I invite China to share its ideas on space traffic management with the EU, so that we may tackle it together.

We need not look any further than the European and Chinese flags to see that both our people aim for the stars. And while there will be competition between the two sides on the way up, I certainly hope that there will also continue to be fruitful cooperation along the way.

Thank you. Xiexie.