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Sino-EU ties should not be hurt by disputes
By Qin Jize and Zhao Huanxin (China Daily)
Updated: 2005-07-16 07:10
Europe and China must always keep the big picture in mind and not let one or two issues overshadow their relationship, the visiting European Commission chief said on Friday in Beijing.
Premier Wen Jiabao shakes hands with visiting European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso in Beijing, July 15, 2005. [Xinhua] |
"The development of a strategic, mutually beneficial and enduring relationship with China is one of the European Union's top foreign policy priorities for this century," Jose Manuel Barroso said in a speech at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
Barroso, on his first visit to China as European Commission president, did not specify which issues were overshadowing the relationship while addressing the Chinese Government's top think-tank.
But in Q-and-A sessions later in the day, Barroso took up issues including China's market economy status, EU's ban on arms sales to China and trade disputes.
The EU and the United States have yet to recognize China's full market economy status, though a host of other countries have done so.
Barroso said both China and the EU need to do more before the EU grants the status to China, adding the decision is unlikely to be made in the immediate future.
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