Chinese Media’s Perspective on Xi Jinping’s Trip to Europe

China was very active on the foreign relations front in May. Russian President Vladimir Putin was in China from May 16 to May 17, after U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s visit from April 24 to April 26. And in between, President Xi Jinping led a high-level visit to France, Hungary, and Serbia from May 5 to May 10, his first visit to Europe in five years.

These sequential talks among major actors suggest the intense interplay of interests. China is trying to tip the balance in its favor while the United States is rallying the EU to go the other way.

Most reports in English discussed Xi’s visit as a great test for, if not proof of, a divided Europe. The general impression is that China and Europe are on the same page when it comes to lower-stake regulatory guidelines, such as climate change and AI safety, but they are divided over tangible and high-stake issues, including trade tariffs on China’s electric vehicle exports and geopolitical disagreements. China’s denial that it is selling weapons to Russia was highlighted as a point of disagreement, but the EU and China agreed on maintaining the status quo on the cross-strait situation.

Chinese state media reflect the general attitudes from the top authorities, and their read on the situation. While Western analysts are skeptical of China’s divide-and-conquer strategy and most say that the effect is limited, Chinese media, both state-run and private, portrayed the visit as mostly a win.

Both Chinese and Western media observed that China has scored well in Serbia. China commemorated the 25th anniversary of NATO’s accidental bombing of China’s embassy, won Serbia’s agreement on building a “community with a shared future,” and issued a joint statement to deepen the strategic partnership with Serbia. The two sides indicated a willingness to cooperate on telecommunications technology, including 5G, cloud, and data, as well as photovoltaic power – areas where other EU members have hesitated to be on the same page with China. Xi’s stop in Serbia was portrayed by Chinese state media as strengthening an “ironclad friendship” that has been tested by time.

Chinese publications portrayed Xi’s visit to France as a win-win for trade and warming relations. Beijing considers France a good partner to tackle numerous global challenges. China Daily praised French President Emmanuel Macron’s hospitality in the Pyrenees, his grandmother’s home region. Macron posted on X in Chinese four times in two days, saying that “relationships are being formed through sharing of stories,” and comparing their trip to the Pyrenees to Xi’s hosting of Macron in Guangzhou. This personal touch was interpreted as evidence of warm relationship by China media.

The two sides issued four joint statements and 18 ministerial level documents. The joint statements covered agricultural cooperation, artificial intelligence and global governance, biodiversity and ocean health, and the ongoing conflict in Gaza. The latter statement focused on de-escalation through the implementation of a two-state solution and humanitarian efforts in Gaza.

According to Taiwanese media, however, France and China also talked about the Ukrainian situation, cross-strait relations and Korean Peninsula, all of which were left out of the joint statements. There was no single, official joint statement issued by the presidents, unlike the statements released after Xi’s trips to Serbia and Hungary (and Putin’s visit to China). This, along with Western media coverage, suggests that there were more disagreements over geopolitical issues than Chinese media was willing to admit.

Chinese publications also created the narrative that China and France understood each other as countries with rich cultures. Xi said to Macron on multiple occasions during their past visits that “to understand China, you first need to understand its history.” The discourse of China being an enduring civilization occurred multiple times in stories published by state media.

In Hungary, whose Prime Minister Viktor Orban is highly sympathetic to China and eager to secure its investment, China signed a joint statement and 18 other documents. Among them, the most notable (and most predictable) statement involved a further promotion of Belt and Road Initiative projects. The list, though not fully fleshed out, will cover basic infrastructure, investment, technology, finance, agriculture, and Chinese medicine. Some provincial level media in China described the relationship as “sailing into a golden route.” The visit is portrayed with less enthusiasm compared to the one in France, but nonetheless was framed as a great success.

A more realist read would suggest a not-so-rosy image between China and the EU. Putin’s subsequent visit to China made the whole Xi-Macron moment in the Pyrenees look unpersuasive in the face of Xi and Putin’s “no-limits partnership.”

Not long after Xi returned home, moreover, the United States slapped 100 percent tariffs on Chinese electric vehicle imports, alongside 50 percent tariffs on solar cells, and more. The EU also signed the European Solar Charter just prior to Xi’s visit to encourage the development of Europe’s own solar sector, while debating their response to China’s supposed overcapacity of green technology.

There will only be more decisions needed to be made in the upcoming days as the United States continues to level up the pressure in the trade war. Those choices, not the headlines, will determined whether Xi’s tour of Europe was truly a success.