China set to cancel part of EU summit in latest strain on ties

Sign up now: Get STs newsletters delivered to your inbox

The cancellation comes as Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi is in Europe for meetings in Brussels, Germany and France.

PHOTO: REUTERS

BEIJING – The Chinese government intends to cancel part of a summit with European Union leaders planned for later in July, in the latest sign of the tensions between Brussels and Beijing.

The second day of the two-day summit in China is set to be cancelled at Beijing’s request, according to people with knowledge of the planning, who asked not to be named discussing private information. Those plans could change by the time they’re finalised, one of the people said.

Originally, European Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen and European Council President Antonio Costa had planned to meet President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Qiang in Beijing on July 24 and then travel to Hefei in central China on July 25 for a business summit. The meeting will now just be one day in Beijing.

Mr Xi is trying to position himself as a more reliable partner than President Donald Trump, who is alienating US allies over issues from tariffs to defence. But relations between Brussels and Beijing have also become more strained by longstanding disagreements over the war in Ukraine and Chinese industrial policy.

Adding to the tensions is an increasingly unbalanced trading relationship compounded by China’s recent export controls on rare earth magnets, which have hit European industries hard.

The two sides had already cancelled the flagship EU-China High-Level Economic and Trade Dialogue and a digital forum, Bloomberg reported in June. That economic meeting