This morning in Beijing, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao explained at his press conference what actually happened in Copenhagen on 17 December 2009 on the eve of the UN Climate Change Conference, which gave rise to criticism of Chinese behaviour and even allegations of arrogance.  It is remarkable that this is the first official version of [...]

Corruption has always been addressed by Premier Wen Jiabao in his annual address to the National People’s Congress, but this year he went much further than before by stating that corruption threatened the rule of the CCP.  In his speech on 5 March 2010, the Premier affirmed  that the battle against graft would be a [...]

After more than two weeks in China, and a third visit in two months, I offer a number of reflections and recommendations, including on developing the so-called “strategic partnership”.  EU-China relationship This is best characterised as: “Europe, we still love you.  We’ll love you even more if you get your act together externally – as [...]

During the “Forum on China-EU Partnership” in Beijing on 20 November 2009, sponsored by the Chinese government (see post of 27 November), the European scholars, led by former French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin, met Premier Wen Jiabao for an hour-long discussion.  It was significant that the premier devoted this amount of time to us, and [...]

This is a good time to review the state of the EU-China relationship, after the postponed summit which took place in Prague on 20 May and the High Level Economic & Trade dialogue which met in Brussels on 7-8 May (see post of 14 May). The official reports and communiqués, following both meetings, are full [...]

The joint EU-China statement of 29 January, after the visit to the Commmission of Premier Wen Jiabao, opened by stating that, “[t]he visit has increased mutual trust, promoted bilateral cooperation, and achieved complete success.”  This is very encouraging.  Wen, who last visited Brussels in 2004 noted that mutual trust between EU and China had in [...]