Szijjártó: Decoupling from China brutal economic suicide
It would be brutal economic suicide for Europe to cut ties with China, especially after the continent's competitiveness has plummeted significantly in recent years for various reasons, Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó said in Tianjin, China, on Tuesday, according to MTI.
Szijjártó: Decoupling from China brutal economic suicide
The Economics of Geography

Szijjártó: Decoupling from China brutal economic suicide

Photo: Facebook/Péter Szijjártó
Eurasia 27/06/2023 15:55

It would be brutal economic suicide for Europe to cut ties with China, especially after the continent's competitiveness has plummeted significantly in recent years for various reasons, Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó said in Tianjin, China, on Tuesday, according to MTI.

Participating in a panel discussion at the World Economic Forum, the so-called summer Davos, the minister said that "connectivity is good, the repeated block-building is bad" and pointed out that this is the starting point of the government's policy on economic relations between Europe and China. He underlined that, based on certain trends, many EU member states see China as a risk or a threat, while Hungary believes that cooperation with the East Asian country can bring a lot of benefits.

"It would be in Europe's interest to cooperate with China on the basis of mutual respect and mutual benefit,"

he said.
Photo: Facebook/Péter Szijjártó
Szijjártó said that Hungary sees the East-West division of labour as a great opportunity and the only way to improve European competitiveness. According to the minister, for decades, the basis for predictable economic growth was a combination of advanced Western technologies and easily available, relatively cheap energy resources from the East, but this has now been lost, as European-Russian ties have been broken as a result of the war in Ukraine.
Photo: Facebook/Péter Szijjártó
"If we cut the Europe-China ties, it would knock out the European economy,"

he said, pointing out that annual trade between the two sides is worth €865 billion. He added that China's gross domestic product (GDP) now exceeds that of the EU. He said that in 2010, China's share of world GDP was only 9 per cent, while the EU's was 22 per cent, but that the situation has now reversed for various reasons, and now stands at 18 and 17 per cent respectively. "If we look at China as a rival, not as a cooperation partner, Europe loses out," he said.

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