Summary China and the EU have butted heads over a number of commercial disputes including at the WTO.
BEIJING (AFP) - The European Union s trade chief called Friday for the bloc to defend itself more aggressively against Beijing, saying it would not "get anything from the Chinese by being polite".
Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht spoke a day after the 28-nation EU held a summit with China at which the two sides launched negotiations for a landmark investment agreement.
The meeting came as the EU and China have seen their commercial relationship grow dramatically, though it has also been characterised by increasing trade disputes over issues ranging from solar panels to wine.
"I don t believe that you get anything from the Chinese by being polite," De Gucht told reporters, quickly adding that the same was true the other way around.
"I mean we stand for our interests and they stand for theirs." De Gucht emphasised that the EU should wield a bigger stick in line with its global clout.
China and the EU have butted heads over a number of commercial disputes this year, including at the World Trade Organisation.
Beijing and Brussels managed to avoid a trade war over cheap imports of Chinese solar panels, but other disputes, including on Chinese rare earth minerals and EU wine, are still simmering.
"We have to defend our interests," De Gucht said. "And they also defend their interests and if there are conflicting interests we should try to get a solution." He added: "It s our role and the more clearly we say it the more easily they will accept it."
Trade between China and the EU amounted to $546.0 billion in 2012, according to Chinese customs data, with the country enjoying a significant surplus.
Though the economy of the United States is the largest in the world among individual countries followed by China at No. 2, the EU s gross domestic product is slightly larger than that of the US and about twice as big as China s.
De Gucht also said that China should not play an inordinately outsized role in terms of the EU s overall policy.
"The EU s trade strategy is not focused solely on China," he said. "We should just treat them as any other trading partner. A big one, yes, (but) not the biggest one." He added: "We should be cool with respect to the Chinese."
Beijing said in June it had begun an anti-dumping probe into European wine, though De Gucht expressed optimism a solution can be worked out.
"It s not an impossible case to resolve because it would be extremely difficult for the Chinese to demonstrate that there is dumping," he said.
De Gucht also said that in the long-run there will be a free trade agreement between the EU and China. The investment accord, however, must come first, he stressed, and suggested that could take years depending on China s willingness to open markets.
He also distanced the EU from comments by Chinese Premier Li Keqiang on Thursday that the two sides will "work to increase trade to $1 trillion by 2020".
De Gucht suggested such a figure, which would represent a near doubling of trade, was unlikely within such a short time.
"We will see what trade brings us, but this is not something that we have been negotiating, that number," he said, adding the figure was "not part of the agreed text" of the summit.
