Chinese Ambassador to the European Union Gives Interview to Brussels Times

In March 2026, Chinese Ambassador to the European Union Cai Run (蔡潤) gave an interview to the Brussels Times, a Belgian English-language outlet. The interview focused on the 15th Five-Year Plan (2026–2030), China’s national development blueprint, and its implications for China-EU relations. Cai claimed that the Plan would “inject stability and certainty into the world” and that China’s trade and investment policies represent genuine openness, citing bilateral trade figures as evidence of a healthy relationship — without acknowledging that EU data shows a 359.9 billion euro in goods trade deficit in 2025. He presented the 2025 lifting of European Parliament exchange restrictions as a diplomatic milestone, also without noting that those restrictions originated from China’s own retaliatory sanctions on MEPs imposed in 2021 in response to EU measures over documented human rights abuses in Xinjiang. Cai also portrayed European businesses and policymakers as broadly welcoming deeper alignment with Beijing, sidestepping an active WTO dispute over EU tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles imposed following findings of unfair state subsidies.