EU should put ties with China back on track

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen's speech on EU-China relations in the European Parliament on Tuesday contains some positive messages, unlike her hostile rhetoric in the past. But it still had disinformation on China and fearmongering.

She began her speech by citing the huge progress achieved by China, saying "in just 50 years, its GDP has grown by more than 10 times". But China's GDP has grown by about 125 times since it launched reform and opening-up in 1978, or 47 years ago.

Von der Leyen came to the conclusion that the EU's access to China's market remains limited, citing that the two sides trade — some €2 billion ($2.34 billion) a day — twice the volume of the EU's trade with Switzerland. But the trade between the European Union and the United States is a little more than €2 billion a day — and she has no issue with it. In fact, it is the US which has complained about the lack of access to the EU market.