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Good morning,

Thank you and sorry for being late, but many things are happening in the world today. There are 6 hours difference between Beijing and Europe and I have to take care [also] of other events. 

Finally, I am in China. I tried to come twice. For one reason or another, the travel had to be postponed. Finally, I had the opportunity to come. I am very happy.

I had two intense days in Shanghai and in Beijing. I came here with the purpose of holding the [EU-China] Strategic Dialogue with [my] Chinese counterparts in order to prepare the next summit between the European Union and China that will take place before the end of the year. There have been other dialogues with some of my colleagues of the European Commission that came here before me on [over] the last weeks and yesterday we had the Strategic Dialogue on our political approach.

It was mainly focused on three issues. First, our bilateral relations. [It was] important to [tell] to [my] Chinese counterpart, the Director and Foreign Minister Wang Yi that for China and Europe cooperation is very much important, that Europe takes China very seriously and we also expect to be considered, not through the lens of our relations with others, but in ourselves. Because since the war in Ukraine, Europe has become a geopolitical power. We started being a trade power, after [being] an economic power. Now, the war in Ukraine has converted us in a geopolitical power, not just an economic one and we want to talk with China from this approach. Do not look at the European Union relations through the lens of the relations with others. 

Second message just to tell clearly that for us Russia represents a huge threat for our security and that we are committed to support Ukraine facing the Russian invasion and asking China to take into consideration this very tough position from our side, considering Russia as a security threat for the whole European Union.

And then, that we have to rebalance our economic bilateral relations. We have a huge deficit that has increased 60% in the last years. And this should not be the consequence of just a competitive disadvantage between the European Union and China. It must be other structural reasons related with the market access encountered by European firms here in China.

We discussed a lot about the causes and consequences of this huge deficit, knowing that today the exports from China towards Europe are at the highest level in the history and that the technological revolution is changing the pattern and the structure of the goods that we exchange.

The conclusion is that despite our differences, there is still a space for cooperation. Yes, we don't have the same political system, which is not a secret. We don't have the same economic system, that is not a secret neither. But despite the differences, we believe that there is still a space for cooperation and the most important challenges that the world is facing cannot be solved without a strong engagement with China.

The first one is climate change. China is burning as much coal as the rest of the world together, in spite of the strong development of renewables in China’s energy mix. The increase of coal powered electricity production in China is offsetting the reduction in the rest of the world. So, [there is] no way of solving the climate change problem without a strong engagement and partnership with China.

We can say the same thing about the level of debt of the emerging countries and the possibility of having a new debt crisis on the way. We have to look at that because China has become the biggest creditor of the emerging economies.

Then we discussed about regional issues, and obviously we had to focus at the Middle East situation, where the spiral of violence following the attack by Hamas in Israel is threatening the stability of the whole region. 

After that we considered many other regional issues of common interest, ranging from Afghanistan to the crises in Africa. It is not that we have a shortage of crises to talk about, there are too many and certainly we didn't exhaust all of them. Next week, my political director, Mr. [Enrique] Mora, will come to Beijing and will continue with the dialogue on many other regional issues that we couldn't discuss.

We talked also about the situation of human rights, in general and in some particular cases.

But the most important, crucial part of our discussion, apart from the bilateral relations, was obviously the situation in the Middle East. You know that before coming to China, I was in Oman, where I co-chaired the European Union - Gulf Cooperation Council [Ministerial meeting] and held an informal Foreign Affairs Council with my colleagues, [EU] ministers who were in Oman and the others joined by videoconference.

We agreed that the international community should do the utmost in order to prevent a further aggravation of the situation that could spill over the region. We reaffirmed the firm condemnation of the indiscriminate attacks by Hamas and called for the stop of violence, any attacks against civilians and the release of hostages.

With my Chinese counterpart, we discussed it and we certainly agreed that the only long-term solution to this crisis, that comes one after the other, every two, three or four years, is to work on the solution of the Two States, that we believe could survive these tragic events.

As I said, we didn't exhaust all crises that we should talk about. Next week, my political director will continue. But it is important to summarise the three elements of our discussions: our bilateral relations, our trade deficit, and the posture with respect to the war in Ukraine were the most important ones.

With respect to the war in Ukraine, I insisted to our Chinese counterpart on the need to not support militarily Russia. Until now, China is not providing arms to Russia. And it's important. I asked him to help us avoiding circumvention of sanctions. We discussed about the war in Ukraine. We know that the position of China. But I make a strong insistence on the fact that seen from the European lenses the war in Ukraine is not against Ukraine, is not only affecting Ukraine, [it] is affecting the security of the Europeans and is sending shockwaves around the world. And I asked China to use their influence to make Russia go back to the [Black Sea] Grain Deal initiative to [allow] the Ukrainian grain to be exported to the rest of the world. Otherwise, we will face another food crisis. It has been a very interesting discussion.

I had also the opportunity of delivering a lecture at the Peking University. I thank a lot the academic authorities for inviting me. And I also had the opportunity to discuss in Shanghai with Institute for International Relations, where together with some Chinese scholars, we had an interesting discussion about the role of China in the world and the relationship between China and European Union.

Thank you.

Q&A

Q. I just wanted to ask a little bit more about the discussions around Israel Hamas war. You mentioned last night in your remarks as well that you both sides had agreed on the Two-State solution aspect of it. But I'm curious, did you press China to use their influence in any other way, for example, reaching out to Iran or Syria, Lebanon? Did you talk about what they could do in concrete measures to sort of de-escalate the situation? So, my question basically is, what else besides the two state Palestinian two state solution did you discuss with vis a vis the Israel-Hamas war?

Well, the Two-State solution is not a solution for tomorrow. We are facing critical moments in Gaza and we cannot say that the problem in Gaza will be solved by the Two-State solution because on this solution the world has been failing miserably. 30 years after Camp David, we haven't succeeded on this Two-State solution.

But what do we discuss with the world? With the world and [also] with the Chinese counterpart? It is that this is the only solution that can be implemented.

So, we agreed that we have to work in trying to build on this solution, but is not a solution for the problem that we are facing today. Today we are facing a very dire humanitarian situation in Gaza and certainly we discussed about the situation there.

And as I said yesterday, I agree a lot with the Secretary-General of the United Nations [António Guterres] when he says that the request by the Israeli army for one million people to leave in 24 hours the north of the Gaza Strip, is something that could not be done. The task of 1 million people moving into the south in 24 hours is just impossible. You cannot move such a volume of people in a short period of time, especially if there are no shelters nor transportation means. And from this point of view, we consider that this warning is good to know, but they have to give more time, to make it possible and not to create a dire humanitarian situation.

Q. Just a real quick follow up. Did you ask them or talk about any other aspects of the Israel-Hamas situation? For example, did you call on China to use its influence with regional players? Was there any discussion about what China can do more, more broadly? 

Certainly, we talked about what each one of us can do in order to try to mend this education.

Q. China has criticised the policy of derisking. They say sometimes that this is just a way to discriminate against European firms in China or just a way to decouple the relationship as a whole. So how do you define the concept of de-risking and how do those conversations go with your Chinese counterparts? Thank you.

Well, we discussed a lot about that, but nobody's talking about decoupling. Nobody is considering the possibility or the will of decoupling the European Union’s economy from the Chinese economy. The amount of our trade relations is so big that decoupling, even if we wanted it - and we don't want it – it is impossible. So, forget about decoupling.

I explained thoroughly that it is a matter of reducing excessive dependencies. And I put the example of what happened when the pandemic came and in Europe, we discovered that we didn't produce a single gram of paracetamol. Not a single gram of paracetamol was produced in Europe while we have the strongest pharmaceutical industry in the world because we have “offshored” [outsourced] all production. So, we were 100% dependent on the imports of a product that no one could have imagined that wasn't a strategic product – paracetamol - until the pandemic came, and then it became a strategic product, and we had to reduce quickly this strong dependency on our imports.

And then the war [against Ukraine] came and we discovered that we were too much dependent on gas, hydrocarbons, in particular in gas, 40% of our import were gas coming from Russia. [These are] excessive dependencies and it's a matter of common sense to diversify the sources of supply. Nothing more than that.

And by the way, China is doing the same thing. Diversifying the sources of supply is a precautionary measure that any firm and any country has to take. And this will be done [on our side] in a proportional manner, analysing and considering exactly which are the excessive dependencies that have to be reduced and always in accordance with international rules about trade. So, I don't think there is any - let’s say - conspiracy against our trade relationship. It is a matter of reducing excessive dependencies. And the Commission will launch studies analysing sector by sector, product by product, where there are excessive dependencies that have to be reduced.

Q. In Poland and Slovakia, there will be two new governments. And can we expect any changes in the position of EU on Ukraine. 

Well, the position of the European Union is being fixed by the European Union Council and the Foreign Ministers [of Member States]. So, you know, in Europe there are changes in government almost every year, someone is changing government. 

Q. Maybe some members of the EU will change their position?

Each government has its own policy too, and we try to build a common policy.

Q. Yesterday, the government of Israel said they were deeply disappointed with China because of its stance on the crisis. They consider that China has not condemned strongly enough the attacks on Israel’s soil and on Israeli people. And they kind of consider that China, like in Ukraine, is being ambiguous. So I would like to know your stance on this issue. Do you think China is being ambiguous, is not condemning strongly enough one of the sides of the conflict?

Well, the Chinese minister was with me at the press conference, and he explained himself the Chinese position and you listened to him. So, you know which is the Chinese position. I'm not going to explain to you which is the Chinese position.

With respect to the war in Ukraine, I insisted that when they talk about territorial integrity the case of Ukraine is certainly a case of violation of the United Nations charter and attack against the territorial integrity of a country. And that's why we moved to supporting Ukraine. And I invited them to participate in the peace talks under the auspices of the Zelensky plan. We discussed about the wide range of [their] position with respect to the war in Ukraine. Nothing, nothing new. And you listened to the Chinese Minister yesterday asking also for the respect of the principles of international humanitarian law.

It is something that we also request. In the declaration of the Foreign Affairs ministers it's clear for us that Israel has the right to defend, but Israel has also to abide by the principle of international humanitarian law. 

Q. Chinese senior diplomat Wang Yi earlier said at a 12th China EU strategic dialogue, he mentioned that relationship between China and the EU has global strategic significance and should not depend on or be interfered with by a third party. So, what's your take on this? 

I think I started my words today answering your question, because I said clearly that we expect China to stop looking at us through the lens of our relations with others. Stop looking at us through the lenses of our relations with others. It's clear. 

Q. The Third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation is going to be held right here in Beijing. And according to a white paper released by China, the cumulated imports and exports volume between China and its partners reached over nineteen trillion U.S. dollars over the past ten years. So in this regard, what's your thoughts on the Belt and Road Initiative as well as the events? Thank you very much.

Look, this initiative is a ten years old initiative and certainly has increased the capacity of building infrastructure around the world. And that's good because the world needs much more infrastructures. So it's a way for China to develop their influence in the rest of the world. I don't have any concrete things to say about if it is good or not. China uses this instrument. Its input is pushing for infrastructure development and investment. 

We have our instruments. We don't compete with them. But I’m sure that some countries that received the initiatives and the funding with the Belt and Road Initiative can be happy with it.  It´s not for me to judge. 

Q. I imagine that global circumstances had been different; one of the main issues that your visit you were going to discuss was the investigation on the Chinese subsidies, on electric vehicles. So I wonder in your interactions with Chinese authorities these days, if you touched upon this topic and from what you've gathered, what their reaction will be?

Well, when we talk about our economic relations, we talk about the level of deficit. And when we talk about the level or deficit you enter into considering which are the elements of the trade that could create this deficit. But I am not the trade commissioner. The trade commissioner has been in Beijing some days ago and they spent two days analysing deeply what is happening with all kinds of products that we sell and we buy and why this trade deficit has been increasing. 

So I didn't go deeply into this issue because I am not the trade commissioner and we have a lot of geopolitical issues to consider. But certainly, this was discussed, it was mentioned, and I told to a Chinese counterpart that to launch an investigation is just to launch an investigation. Let's see the result of the investigation.

Q. During your visit, you spoke about the responsibility that China has to use its influence on Russia, where the Ukraine war is concerned. Yesterday, after Israel issued its instruction to more than a million people in Gaza to leave their homes within 24 hours, Ursula von der Leyen was in Jerusalem where she met Prime Minister Netanyahu and she gave him the unconditional support of the European Union in his response to last week's attacks by Hamas. And she made no public criticism of that evacuation order. By what authority does the Commission’s President speak for the European Union on this matter? And after what she said and did in Israel yesterday, how much responsibility will the European Union now share for what Israel does next? 

Look, the position of the European Union on foreign policy is being determined by the European Union Council and by the Foreign Affairs Ministers Council, because the common foreign policy of the European Union is an intergovernmental policy, it’s not a community policy.

So, the official position of the European Union with any foreign policy [issue] is being fixed - I repeat - by the guidelines, the high-level political decision of the European Union Council, chaired by President Michel and by the Foreign Affairs Council ministers chaired by me.

And the position is clear, is that we certainly defend the right of Israel to defend itself against the attack that it has been suffering. But as any right, it has a limit. And this limit is international law and international humanitarian law. And that's what we said in Oman, the [EU] ministers, and that is what I have been repeating since then, the right to defence of Israel has to be in accordance with international humanitarian law. And about this warning of 1 million people living in Gaza, in the north of Gaza, in 24 hours I said and I am saying that representing the official position of the European Union is that it is utterly, utterly impossible to implement and I am supporting clearly the position of the United Nations Secretary-General saying that to imagine that you could move one million people in 24 hours in a situation like Gaza can only be a big humanitarian crisis.

Link to the video:https://audiovisual.ec.europa.eu/en/video/I-247171