Beijing, 7 December 2023 (dpa/MIA) - The European Union and China took a small step towards each other during high-level talks focused on contentious trade disputes in Beijing on Thursday.

The 24th EU-China summit, which was held in person for the first time since 2019, yielded no concrete results. But both sides expressed willingness to work together after a period of increasing tensions.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the leaders of China - the EU's most important economic partner - expressed openness to addressing the bloc's ballooning trade deficit.

"I'm glad that we agreed with President Xi that trade should be balanced between the two of us," she said on Thursday evening after talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Qiang.

Beijing's trade deficit has doubled in the last two years in China's favour, which is a cause for concern for many European leaders, von der Leyen said.

Brussels says the reasons for the widening gap include the lack of access for European companies to the Chinese market and the preferential treatment of Chinese companies through subsidies.

"We like competition. It makes us better, it lowers prices, it's good for the consumers. But competition needs to be fair," von der Leyen said.

She added that she wanted to see concrete results from China: "This of course will determine the future of our relationship."

EU Council President Charles Michel noted at the talks that goods worth more than €2 billion are exchanged between China and the European Union every day.

However, the EU's trade deficit amounts to almost €400 billion, he said. "Concrete measures" should be implemented to rebalance this relationship, he said.

Xi said that, in his view, China and the EU should be partners, and not regard each other as rivals.

The European Union has of late frequently described Beijing as an "economic competitor" and a "systemic rival."

Xi said that previous dialogues with the EU on trade and the environment had achieved good results this year, Chinese state television reported.

China and the EU must work together for global stability and development in the light of "unexpected change" in global politics, he added.

In the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic and Russia's invasion of Ukraine, top EU officials have expressed the need for Europe to become more independent in certain area, such as critical raw materials - a sector Beijing is dominant in.

In China, however, von der Leyen and Michel emphasized that the EU did not want to "decouple" from China.

Other topics discussed in Beijing included China's role in Russia's circumvention of Western sanctions, the war in Ukraine and the conflict between Israel and the Islamist militant group Hamas.

Photo: EPA