China, EU celebrate 40 years of diplomatic ties in Brussels

Yang Yanyi, Ambassador of China to EU, speaks at the celebrations marking the 40th anniversary of EU-China diplomatic relations on May 6 in Brussels. Photo by Gao Shuang

An article entitled "At 40 We have No More Doubts" - The EU and China are Strategic Partners for a Long Run was published on May 7 under the joint authorship of Chinese Foreign Affairs Minister Wang Yi and EU High Representative Mogherini, as a part of the celebrations marking the anniversary.

"We have discussed the importance of developing our investment co-operation through an ambitious investment agreement that can be at the level of our impressive economic relationship."

Mogherini said the coming summit will be a perfect moment to take stock of the economic and trade relations.

"We will try to find synergies between our infrastructure and connectivity policies, such as the European Fund for Strategic Investment and China's 'One Belt, One Road' initiative," she added.

"The summit in June will be the chance to move ahead on this."

Apart from the 17th China-EU Summit, there will be new rounds of China-EU High-Level Economic and Trade Dialogue and High-Level People-to-People Dialogue held within the year.

In the coming months, a rich variety of exchange activities will be held in Brussels too, including film festival, food festival, ping-pong contest, qigong workshop, fashion week, and so on.

All of the events will give an impetus to the bilateral cooperation atmosphere.

Topping $600 billion the annual trade volume between China and the EU has more than quadrupled since 2003 when the EU-China strategic partnership was established.

Today the number of mutual visits by people from two sides surpasses million a year.

Both sides are committed to fully leveraging around 70 dialogues and cooperation mechanisms and pushing forward in an all-round way the relationship between China and the EU and its members.

Bilateral cooperation in mutual investment, infrastructure building, finance, scientific innovation and other fields has already deepened and borne rich fruits.

"But we will also be aiming at expanding and strengthening the fields of bilateral cooperation, with new areas of cooperation and new steps," Mogherini stressed to her Chinese counterparts.

From her perspective, EU and China have a lot to work together not only on trade and investment, but also on a board range of bilateral and global targets, including climate change, security and defense, regional and international crisis management, migration and asylum etc.

In Europe, observers keeping close eyes on EU-China relationship also believe that the two sides will deepen their pragmatic cooperation widely, draw their people closer and elevate the bilateral relations greatly through a series of joint celebration and high exchange of high-level visits.