At the invitation of the Chinese authorities, the President of the Mouvement Réformateur, Georges-Louis Bouchez, will pay an official visit to China from 7 to 11 April. This five-day mission will take the President to Beijing and Shenzhen, at the heart of China's economic, technological and industrial power.
In Beijing, the MR President will have several high-level political contacts with the leadership of the International Department of the CPC Central Committee (IDCPC), including a meeting with its head, Mr Liu Haixing, as well as talks with Vice Minister Ma Hui. He will also visit the Development Research Centre of the State Council, a strategic government think tank, and will be received at the residence of the Belgian ambassador, Mr Bruno Angelet, for an exchange on Sino-Belgian relations and the current geopolitical context.
The programme also includes a series of visits to emblematic companies of China's industrial rise: the Beijing Robotics Innovation Center, the Comac site in Beijing, an aircraft manufacturer aiming to rival Airbus and Boeing, and the Xiaomi EV Super Factory, an electric vehicle plant illustrating China's push into the mobility of the future.
The second part of the trip will take place in Shenzhen, the epicentre of technological innovation. There, the MR President will meet a leader of the local CPC party, visit a China-EU cooperation programme, and visit several leading companies, including UBTECH Robotics (service and humanoid robots) and BYD, which has become one of the world's largest car manufacturers and electric vehicle producers, where vehicle test drives are also planned.
Georges-Louis Bouchez has for many years taken a geopolitical view of industrial, energy and military issues. This mission is part of this drive for understanding and international relations, which are essential for making the best decisions at national level.
“We welcome the initiative of the Chinese authorities in receiving our delegation with a view to better mutual understanding. This initiative will allow us to deepen our relations, both economically and diplomatically, without being naive about the state of the world, our differences and the existing international competition. China is today a superpower that acts as such. Our responsibility is to travel to this country, which is as worrying as it is fascinating, in order to better understand its ambitions and establish constructive relations. Frankness is required towards them, we owe ourselves critical distance, but it is also our duty to preserve this channel of discussion for the future. Defending our interests and those of the West, preparing our responses to this geopolitical reality, requires seeing the world as it is, not as we would wish it to be.”
This mission reflects the MR's desire to better understand global power dynamics, to grasp the drivers of Chinese power in industry, technology and energy, and to feed, based on findings on the ground, its proposals to strengthen the sovereignty, security and competitiveness of Belgium and Europe.