EU-China tensions rise over trade, Russia and market access

Brussels and Beijing mark 50 years of diplomatic ties, but growing tensions cloud hopes for progress at next month's leaders' summit

Welcome back to What’s Happening in China, your weekly China brief.

As U.S.-China relations remain tense, Brussels and Beijing haven’t been seeing eye to eye either. The PRC’s close ties with Russia despite Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, complaints about industrial overcapacity flooding EU markets, a large trade deficit, unfair competition practices, and limited market access for European companies are among the EU’s main grievances.

Struggling with its own economic challenges, the EU finds itself navigating between an increasingly hostile U.S. and an assertive China in a world fragmented by their confrontation.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, speaking Monday at a G7 meeting in Kananaskis, Canada, condemned Beijing for its industrial policies, accusing it of showing an “unwillingness to live within the constraints of the rules based international system.”

“While others opened their market China focused [on] undercutting intellectual property protections, massive subsidi…