European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced today that she will demand “fair” competition for Europe with China during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping later in the day in Paris.

“We must act to guarantee that competition will be fair and not distorted,” she stressed, according to the text released hours before her tripartite meeting with Mr Xi and his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron.

“China is currently making, with massive subsidies, more than it is selling because of weak domestic demand. This leads to an oversupply of Chinese subsidized products such as electric vehicles and steel” and “unfair trade practices”, he complained.

“Europe cannot accept such practices, which distort the market and may lead to deindustrialization in Europe,” he insisted.

In previous meetings with the Chinese president, “I have said clearly that the current imbalances in terms of market access are not sustainable and must be corrected,” she added.

Disagreements on trade issues between Brussels and Beijing are many.

In a wedge between the US and Chinese economies, with the latter heavily subsidized by the state, the EU has in recent months multiplied investigations into Chinese state aid in various industrial sectors, especially companies that make electric cars, accused of distorting competition.

Beijing sees these measures with a bad eye, which it considers to be part of a “protectionist” policy. Chinese authorities are conducting their own investigations into subsidies, particularly French cognac, which the French president is expected to raise.