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Xiaofei Xu

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s state-of-the-union speech offered few details on new trade measures targeting China, but its sharp tone was designed to send a message to Beijing, analysts said.
During her speech on Wednesday, von der Leyen warned that a “second China shock” was already affecting Europe and vowed that Brussels would use all available tools to rebalance its trade relationship with the country.
Her remarks came as the European Union’s October deadline for securing tangible results in rebalancing trade with China approaches. EU Trade Commissioner Maros Sefcovic held a video conference with his Chinese counterpart Wang Wentao as planned on Thursday.
Though the speech was light on specifics, the fact that China was the third topic addressed and explicitly mentioned as a threat to Europe was significant, according to Peter Chase, senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund and a former US diplomat in Brussels.
“Where it was placed and how explicitly she spoke were the more important messages than the actual words that she used,” he said.
For Chase, von der Leyen’s statement that Europe would always defend the rules-based order, but could no longer rely on it to protect European interests, was clearly a message to Washington and Beijing.
“[The message is] when there are countries that are not adhering to the rule of law, we can no longer use the rule of law to address the problems we have,” he said.


Others nevertheless saw the speech as a sign that von der Leyen still wanted Europe to deal with China within the framework of the World Trade Organization.
“For me, the important signal is that there was no reference to new instruments,” said Ignacio Garcia Bercero, a senior fellow at Bruegel and former director at the European Commission’s trade department.
Von der Leyen’s vow to use all the tools at Brussels’ disposal was a signal that any potential autonomous actions coming from the EU would be framed within the context of legitimate actions under the rules of the WTO, according to Garcia Bercero.
The fact that she refrained from mentioning any specific measures also indicated that the priority was still for both sides to see what could be achieved during a coming round of trade talks in October, he said.
Analysts agreed that the ongoing trade talks could be a reason von der Leyen did not announce any new measures.
“It would be inappropriate to say, ‘we already committed to this deadline for these negotiations, but we’re going to go ahead and start doing all this stuff anyway’, that would be very unusual by European diplomatic standards,” said Jacob Gunter, head of programme for economy and industry at the Mercator Institute for China Studies.
It would also be politically risky for von der Leyen to go too far in her speech, given the delicate power balance between Brussels and member states, which could hurt the EU’s ability to build a political consensus next month and take concrete actions, according to Gunter.
Von der Leyen’s announcement that the bloc would work with Canada to make it an associate member of the EU also reflected her will to work together with like-minded countries, he added.
“It is a very clear signal that there are serious major powers in the world who, because of course some of what China has done, but really what Donald Trump has done, are trying to find alternative coalitions,” Gunter said.


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The EU leader’s speech was light on specifics, but aimed to signal firm stance ahead of looming trade talks with Beijing, analysts say


The EU leader’s speech was light on specifics, but aimed to signal firm stance ahead of looming trade talks with Beijing, analysts say.


Von der Leyen’s ‘China shock’ speech aimed to send Beijing a message: analysts

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}The EU leader’s speech was light on specifics, but aimed to signal firm stance ahead of looming trade talks with Beijing, analysts say

The EU leader’s speech was light on specifics, but aimed to signal firm stance ahead of looming trade talks with Beijing, analysts say