Ambassador Yang Yanyi during her allocution – Picture ChinaEU
Over 200 key stakeholders of the EU gathered at the China Cultural Centre in Brussels on May 25, to raise a glass at the first anniversary of China EU.
As a young yet passionate organisation with an ambitious vision in the digital future, ChinaEU has offered several exciting activities and events to promote digital cooperation as well as to connect digital leaders between China and Europe over the last year.
Ambassador H.E. Yang Yanyi, Head of the PRC Mission to the EU quoted a Chinese proverb “cast a brick to invite jade” in her speech to open up the floor. This saying also summarised well ChinaEU’s role in intensifying digital dialogue between China and the EU: the brick being one year of relentless efforts of ChinaEU and the jade being the lucrative opportunities that will result from increased cooperation between EU and Chinese business.
Entitled “China-EU partnerships in the Digital industry: with the Chinese Ambassador and Digital Leaders”, the One-Year Anniversary event was also a networking evening, bringing together over 20 MEPs with their colleagues and assistants, 40 high-level representatives from European Commission and more than 100 representatives from industries to share and exchange views on challenges and opportunities of building China-EU digital partnerships.
Discussed cooperation between China and the EU on digital matters includes a number of domains such as:
- Infrastructure, trade but also people-to-people connectivity between Europe and China, based on an open rule-based platform;
- The issue of licensing and the protection and enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights, which are crucial for innovation;
- The development of common standards and joint research in areas such as 5G mobile communications and the “Internet of Things”, building on the dialogue between the European Commission and the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT).
Four selected industry representatives provided concrete examples of such cross-inseminations between China and Europe during the event.
For more information:
ChinaEU: www.chinaeu.eu
Mission of the PRC to the EU (HE Ambassador Yang Yanyi): http://www.chinamission.be/eng/
