The thorny issues of textiles trade and an arms embargo will be on the agenda when three European Union senior diplomats arrive in China today for talks to mark 30 years of diplomatic relations.
Chinese textile exports to the EU have surged since a global quota regime ended on January 1, prompting calls from European nations for emergency action to curb the flood of goods.
Several European nations want emergency action to restrain the boom in cheap imports, and the US has also taken steps that could lead to limits on shipments from China by opening probes into about 10 categories of imports.
"This issue will surely be discussed," Ma Keqing, an official with the Chinese Foreign Ministry's Department of European Affairs, told a news conference yesterday.
But she said any economic dislocation was the EU's fault for not taking measures since the Uruguay round of World Trade Organisation negotiations in 1994 when it was agreed there would be a 10-year grace period to phase out quotas.
"I personally believe some EU countries have not abided by this regulation. They have only removed the quota at the very end of the grace period, and that is one of the reasons for this issue," Ms Ma said.
"The EU should step up its industrial readjustment rather than taking protective measures," she said of the textile industry that provides about 2.5 million jobs in the European Union and employs about 19 million in China.
Ms Ma said China's textile exports were $22 billion in the first quarter, up 19 per cent, but added total trade in the same period was up 34 per cent.
Under China's trade agreements, other countries can restrict imports of textiles to 7.5 per cent above the previous year in the event of a sudden surge, but Beijing has said invoking the clause in this case would be discriminatory.
During meetings between the EU delegation and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and State Councillor Tang Jiaxuan, China will also continue its push for the lifting of the EU's arms embargo, imposed following the military crackdown on Tiananmen Square democracy demonstrators in 1989.
EU External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner will "raise developments in the area of human rights and will strongly encourage the early ratification by China of the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights," the EU said in a statement.
But China opposes linking the arms ban with human rights. "This is an important undertaking we are committed to," Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said, referring to human rights. "But this has nothing to do with the arms embargo issue."
Luxembourg, which holds the EU's rotating presidency, has said it wants the arms ban resolved by June.
But momentum in the EU to lift it has slowed since China passed a law in March allowing the use of military force against Taiwan should it declare independence, raising fears China would go on a buying spree that would change the military balance in the region. China has said it would do no such thing.
The two sides will also discuss a new bilateral framework agreement to boost economic cooperation.
"Our existing Trade and Economic Cooperate Agreement simply doesn't live up to the dynamism of today's partnership," Ms Ferrero-Waldner said.
Trade between China and the EU hit $177.4 billion in 2004, more than 70 times the figure when they first established relations 30 years ago, Ms Ma said.