With Premier Wen Jiabao winding up another charity trip, European political and business leaders are going all-out to curry favour with the cash-laden Chinese juggernaut. Yet hopes that Mr Wen’s rising power will drag their region out of its economic malaise actually threaten to wreck an already complicated relationship.

Europe’s interest in building a new “silk road” to the thriving Chinese market is not new, but the recent financial crisis added new impetus. Appeals have been made to China, to help bail out Greece, Portugal and Spain by purchasing their debt. With home markets subdued, European states are also scrambling to serve the burgeoning Chinese consumer market. Visiting investors are routinely given the red-carpet treatment, as if the vanguard of a new caravan of capital bearers.

This is obviously not a trivial matter. Chinese direct investment in the European Union has now expanded to $6bn a year, according to government figures, while Beijing has pledged many billions more to the treasuries of peripheral nations. Yet these achievements must also be put in perspective. China’s share of EU investment inflows remains relatively modest, and compared to its $1,000bn in US Treasury bond holdings, Chinese purchases of European debt are still tiny.