adminThe third annual EU-China Strategic dialogue, aimed at paving the way for the next leaders’ summit in Brussels this year, came as the eurozone stepped up efforts to tackle its crisis with a 30-billion-euro package for Spain.
“China reaffirmed its support for European integration, Europe’s efforts to solve its debt crisis, and the stability of the eurozone,” said a joint statement released yesterday at the end of the talks.
Europe is China’s biggest trading partner and Beijing is a major holder of European debt, so China has viewed the eurozone crisis with alarm.
But the Chinese co-chair of the dialogue, State Councillor Dai Bingguo, expressed strong backing for eurozone efforts to win the battle.
“China is sincere and firm in supporting European efforts to deal with the sovereign debt problem,” Dai told reporters.
“We have every confidence in the future of Europe.”
His European counterpart to the talks, EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, welcomed China’s support and said she hoped the two sides would expand their economic ties.
“We talked about the strong trade and investment links and our aspiration to see them develop,” she said.
However, while China had in the past said it was looking at ways it could contribute to bailout funds to help Europe, it had not publicly announced any cash injections
and no measures were announced yesterday. — AFP.
Online Reporter