China-EU relations

China's top intelligence agency has been embroiled in a German probe into a former ambassador of the European Union who was accused of spying for China. Police raided nine addresses in Berlin and Brussels, as well as the German states of Baden-Württemberg and Bavaria, on Wednesday. The authorities were targeting the ex-ambassador, who was not named, and two other people. The news was first reported by Der Spiegel magazine, which says that two of the addresses in question were linked to people who provided private and business information to the Chinese Ministry of State Security, the country’s top counter-intelligence and foreign intelligence unit. The case is the first in recent years invol

Two days before Chinese Premier Li Keqiang set off for Brussels to attend Tuesday’s summit with European Union leaders, Chinese diplomats were getting desperate. They were struggling to get their EU counterparts back to the table to agree on a joint statement to be released at the end of the meeting between Li and EU leaders. The two sides were able to draft a statement at the last minute, but not before European negotiators initially threatened to walk out from the discussions. The rare show of hostility, diplomats said, reflected the EU’s impatience with China’s lack of solid promises or follow-through on when and how it would deliver the market reforms the bloc had been waiting for years