Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Wang Wenbin Photo: VCG

Chinese Foreign Ministry said it welcomes all countries to share in China's huge market of more than 1.4 billion people, and China isn't deliberately seeking a trade surplus, in a response after the EU chief's comments on trade imbalance between the two economies.

The China-EU trade is a result of the macro-economic environment, international trade conditions and bilateral industrial structure. China has a trade surplus with the EU on the surface, but in fact a substantial part of profits were pocketed by European firms, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said on Wednesday.

It is not reasonable that the EU side imposes restriction on high-tech exports to China, yet hopes to drastically increase overall exports, he added. 

China has never deliberately sought to maintain a trade surplus. On the contrary, "we have continued to promote high-level opening-up by hosting the China International Import Expo and China International Supply Chain Expo, and welcome all countries to better share China's huge market of more than 1.4 billion people," Wang said. 

The comments came after European Union chief Ursula von der Leyen warned Tuesday, ahead of an annual EU-China summit, that Europe won't tolerate its soaring trade imbalance with China forever, the AFP reported on Tuesday. 

"We prefer to have negotiated solutions. And these are the choices that, for example, now are on the table and where I think it is also in China's interest to look carefully at these choices," she said. 

Wang said that China is a trustworthy and indispensable partner of the EU, whether it is solving outstanding problems faced by Europe or effectively responding to global challenges.

Properly resolving differences through dialogue and negotiation is an important experience for the development of China-EU relations, Wang said. 

The upcoming 24th EU-China Summit is scheduled to be held in Beijing on Thursday, and this will be the first in-person EU-China summit since 2019.

Global Times