A market of 500 million people, which in 2011 was worth 428 billion euros, double that of 2003, and which must continue to grow. In a period of crisis like the current one, trade between the European Union and China cannot be renounced. And José Manuel Barroso (President of the European Commission), Herman Van Rompuy (President of the European Council) and Wen Jiabao (Prime Minister of the Republic of China) do not want to. This is why the three leaders met today in Brussels.
No concrete decisions were taken, it was rather a meeting to remind each other of mutual importance and try to overcome, at least in appearance, the latest commercial impasse. Despite the conflicts that have arisen in recent months, for Wen Jiabao, China and the EU “do not have major conflicts of interest. Chinese companies have increased their investments in Europe and this has created more jobs”. The Chinese leader then reiterated the two requests that Beijing regularly presents to its interlocutors on these occasions: the abolition of the European embargo on the sale of arms to Beijing – in effect since the Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989 – e the advance granting of “market economy” status under the rules of the World Trade Organization, planned for 2016.
But Wen Jiabao is also in Europe to see with his own eyes how the Eurozone debt crisis. Before the announcement of ECB President Mario Draghi's anti-spread plan, the European authorities put pressure on Beijing for months to inject over 2 trillion euros into the European State-saving Fund. Pressures that have eased after the new measures of the Central Bank but which, with the 3.240 billion dollars of reserves of the Chinese Treasury, of which about a quarter denominated in euros, could always resurface.
The Chinese fear stems from the fact that even theThe Asian giant's economy is not experiencing its best period. The growth estimates for 2012 they were cut to 7,5% when at the beginning of the year there was still hope for at least one percentage point more. The PMI manufacturing index continues to fall below the 50-point threshold, an indication of the industry's recession.
To make the situation even more uncertain, they are anti-Japanese protests fate in the last few days all over the country. The fuse that set Chinese tempers on fire was the landing of some Japanese ships on uninhabited islands in the East China Sea – known as Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China. A few days later, on the anniversary of Japan's pre-WWII invasion of China, demonstrations and boycotts erupted across the country, forcing several Japanese businesses to close shops and factories.
Finally there are the doubts about the change of leadership of the Communist party. A date has not yet been set for the passage of the throne but it is rumored that it should take place in the first weeks of October. It is clear that whoever takes over from Hu Jintao as general secretary of the CPC and chairman of the military commission will have one goal in mind: to continue to grow. The favorite seems to be Xi Jinping, the 59-year-old now vice-president who disappeared from the international public scene for the first fifteen days of September, arousing the most disparate fantasies about his absence. What is certain is that journalists will not be able to investigate further: Beijing has banned tomorrow's post-meeting press conference.
Yet what scares Europe is not so much the total secrecy with which the steps to the top of the CCP are taking place, but rather the violence in the Chinese streets. For a long time, the party's legitimacy was based on two pillars: economic growth and nationalism. Now that the economy is faltering, there is a risk that patriotism will take over.
