Beijing (AP) – The European Union and China kicked off negotiations on expanding cooperation in trade, climate change and other fields on Wednesday, starting a process that is expected to take at least a year to complete.
Benita Ferrero-Waldner, the EU commissioner for external relations, and Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing held the first round of talks on updating a 1985 Chinese-European treaty on commercial relations. EU officials hope the new pact will launch a new wide-ranging partnership on trade, environmental protection, energy and other fields.
Following the talks at a state guest house in Beijing, Ferrero-Waldner said changes on both sides required the sides to “upgrade” their relations.
“China is changing before our eyes…and the European Union continues to grow, both in size but also in capacity,” Ferrero-Waldner said.
“Therefore we need to change our basis too,” she added.
Earlier in the day, Ferrero-Waldner said it could take up to two years to complete the new deal but an EU spokesman said there was no deadline.
“It’s not going to happen in less than a year,” said Michael Jennings, a spokesman for the EU office in Beijing.
The 27-member European Union is China’s biggest trading partner.
A key goal of Ferrero-Waldner’s trip is to persuade China to join a European initiative to improve energy efficiency, reduce use of oil and gas and cut emissions of greenhouse gases.
“This will be a main focus of this trip, to talk to our Chinese interlocutors about how to strengthen the partnership that we already have on climate change, how to help, how we can help the Chinese to develop clean coal technology,” EU spokeswoman Emma Udwin said this week.
China is trying to promote conservation in its economy one of the world’s biggest oil consumers. But the government is reluctant to adopt binding emissions limits, arguing that its people are too poor and its companies lack technology to set stringent goals.
Udwin said EU officials also would raise human rights in the talks.
Ferrero-Waldner said Chinese officials had raised no objections to the insertion into the new agreement of language advocating human right protection that is standard in all the EU’s agreements with foreign governments.
However, pointing to possible sticking points, Li said China would keep pushing for the lifting of an EU weapons embargo imposed after Chinese troops crushed pro-democracy protesters in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square in 1989.
“The sides should treat each other as equals with no political discrimination,” Li said.
China also expected the EU to grant it long-sought-after market economy status, saying the country had lived up to its World Trade Organization commitments.
Obtaining that status would offer China more protection against trade retaliation such as EU anti-dumping duties imposed on imports of Chinese-made shoes. The EU says Beijing must first do more to open its markets for foreign competition.
The EU ran a $133 billion trade deficit with China in 2005.
Earlier, Ferrero-Waldner and Vice Commerce Minister Yi Xiaozhun signed an agreement to create the China-Europe School of Law. The EU said it would contribute $23.5 million to the project.
Other agreements signed by Ferrero-Waldner and Yi call for the two sides to set up projects to improve China’s protection of patents and other intellectual property and to teach high-level business skills to Chinese students.
The EU complains that China is failing to protect foreign intellectual property, costing European companies billions of dollars a year in lost potential sales.
The two governments said the law school would be run by a group of European academic institutions and at least one Chinese partner. They did not say when it would be set up or where.
The school is meant to “improve the understanding of the Chinese legal profession of European and international law and will help European professionals, academics and students to widen their knowledge of Chinese law,” said an EU statement.
Ferrero-Waldner on Wednesday also met with Chinese State Councilor Tang Jiaxuan.
