The EU Foreign Affairs Representative Josep Borrell, famous for his comment that Europe is a “garden” and the rest of the world is a “jungle,” met with China’s foreign affairs director Wang Yi on the sidelines of the ASEAN meeting in Indonesia, and, as in the meeting with Chinese leaders by Blinken and Yellen in the past days, spoke politely about friendship and cooperation, despite the continuing economic and strategic confrontation policies which are in place.
Borrell claimed that “de-risking” doesn’t target China, that the EU does not support confrontation of camps, and that China is first and foremost an important partner of the EU. The Global Times covered these comments, noting that “such a high-ranking EU official’s remarks could represent the official stance of the bloc and directly refuted negative opinions over the development of China-EU relations. Experts believed that the remarks also showed that a rather positive momentum has been built in developing China-EU ties as the result of enhanced communication and increased exchanges in recent times.”
