Source: GT Published: 2024-02-05

As the foreign ministers of Norway and Switzerland kick off their China trip on Monday and Tuesday, experts believe that the visits reflect Europe's rejection of being further kidnapped by the US and suggest a return to diplomatic autonomy. The closer partnership between China and Europe, they said, can effectively fend off the US' radical, crisis-prone approach in dealing with global affairs.

Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide will pay an official visit to China from Monday to Wednesday, while Swiss Federal Councillor and Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis will kick off his journey from Tuesday to Wednesday, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin announced last week.

Commenting on Eide's visit, Wang said this year marks the 70th anniversary of diplomatic ties between China and Norway, and currently bilateral relations are growing on a sound track, with fruitful cooperation in areas of trade, investment, green development and cultural and people-to-people exchange, and broader consensus on important issues such as free trade, climate change and peaceful development.

During Cassis' visit, the two sides will hold the third round of the China-Switzerland Foreign Ministers' Strategic Dialogue, the spokesperson said, noting that the two countries 'have set a fine example of friendly cooperation between countries of different social systems and different sizes at different development stages.'

The timing of their trips, which falls on the biggest festival season in China that locals see as a time for reunion among families and friends, conveys the willingness of Oslo and Bern to strengthen their bond with Beijing, Li Haidong, a professor at the China Foreign Affairs University, told the Global Times on Monday.

'With Switzerland being a neutral country and Norway a NATO member, their visits indicate that countries with different positions in Europe have a common desire for enhancing partnership with Beijing,' Li said, expressing confidence that this broad and extensive collaboration between China and Europe, along with their mutual support in international affairs, will be further demonstrated through deeper interactions in the future.

Choosing Northern Europe as the start of a 'big year' for China-Europe relations is of special significance, as some politicians in Northern Europe had been quite vocal in criticizing China on various issues such as human rights in the past few years. However, they are now starting to realize that such ideological biases are actually the result of US manipulation, while Europe is the one that has suffered the most because of this power play, Wang Yiwei, director of the Institute of International Affairs at the Renmin University of China, told the Global Times.

China and Switzerland have completed a joint feasibility study on upgrading the China-Switzerland Free Trade Agreement (FTA) and agreed to support the early launch of formal FTA upgrade negotiations, the two sides announced in January during talks between Chinese Premier Li Qiang and President of the Swiss Confederation Viola Amherd in Bern.

China also announced it will waive visa requirements for Swiss nationals while Switzerland said it will offer convenient visa processes for Chinese citizens and companies.

Experts believe that the visa-free policies will also be discussed during the Norwegian and Swiss foreign ministers' visits, in addition to green economy and clean energy cooperation.

During the 2023 China Marine Economy Expo held in Shenzhen, South China's Guangdong Province in November 2023, Signe Brudeset, ambassador of the Kingdom of Norway to China and Mongolia, said that China is one of Norway's largest trading partners in Asia, and the expo provided a good platform for many Norwegian companies to contact their Chinese counterparts and enhance exchanges, to promote bilateral trade between Norway and China, Xinhua reported.

The improvement of China-EU relations is indispensable for responsibly handling current international crises and promoting effective international cooperation, Li Haidong said.

'Europe seeks stability and cooperation in a broader range of areas driven by its own interests, in contrast to the US, which is known for making trouble in every corner of the globe. As long as China and Europe can achieve genuine and fruitful cooperation in practical fields, it will provide a strong constraint on the reckless, aggressive, and crisis-prone approach of the US in dealing with global affairs. This is the key significance of China-EU cooperation,' the expert noted.