Top EU diplomat Kallas expected to visit Beijing in autumn amid deepest strains in years

The European Union’s foreign affairs chief, Kaja Kallas, is expected to travel to China in the autumn for her first face-to-face meeting with Foreign Minister Wang Yi since a bruising encounter in Brussels last summer, according to multiple people familiar with the planning.It would also mark Kallas’ first trip to Beijing since taking on her role in 2024.The trip – with a date yet to be confirmed – would revolve around the bilateral “strategic dialogue”, a mostly annual format in which the sides discuss foreign and security policy issues.High on the EU agenda will be hot topics such as China’s relations with Russia, the ongoing crises in the Middle East and the tense situation in the Taiwan Strait.At the last such meeting, Wang shocked his European interlocutors by telling them that Beijing did not want Russia to lose the war in Ukraine because that would mean the United States would turn its full attention to Asia.Insiders described the encounter as tense from the outset, with minor protocol mix-ups and a combative on-camera opening from Kallas in which she pressed Wang over China’s support for Russia.