EU-China summit – who’s attending and what’s on the agenda?

The summit, being hosted in China on Thursday, marks 50 years of diplomatic ties between Brussels and Beijing but thorny issues loom large.

The mood before the meeting on Thursday, however, has not been particularly celebratory but, rather, tense with low expectations for any concrete bilateral deals. The summit which was meant to be a two-day affair, was also condensed into a single day’s event by Beijing earlier this month, citing domestic reasons.

Gunnar Wiegand, the former managing director for Asia and the Pacific at the European External Action Service (EEAS) and currently a distinguished fellow at the Indo-Pacific Program of the German Marshall Fund’s  Brussels Office,

Who is attending the summit?

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Antonio Costa will visit China on Thursday, seeking to address these disputes at the summit.

A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson added that after 50 years of EU-China development, their ties “can cope with the changing difficulties and challenges”.