Weber demanded that the EU states should not further increase their dependence on China for raw materials, but would have to find new partners. An EU-wide raw materials strategy is "urgently needed". The EU summit that ended on Friday was a disappointment in this respect. The heads of state and government were "occupied with themselves, but not with an urgently needed new China policy".

The heads of state and government had discussed a working paper by EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, in which China is rated as a "competitor" and increasingly also as a "rival" in global politics. However, EU Council President Charles Michel said after the meeting that the Europeans wanted to avoid a "systematic confrontation with Beijing" also because of their close trade relations with the country.

China's head of state and party leader Xi was appointed on Sunday for a third five-year term as general secretary by his party's new central committee, a departure from decades-old rules. This means that the 69-year-old is likely to be elected president for a third time by the National People's Congress in March. Xi paved the way for this in 2018, when he abolished the two-seat presidential term limit.

yeah