France, Germany and the European Commission have pushed Xi Jinping to open China’s protected domestic markets to foreign business, with Angela Merkel insisting on “a certain amount of reciprocity” from Beijing to seal an EU-China investment agreement next year.

French president Emmanuel Macron has tried to forge a united EU front to resist intense commercial competition from China and the US. But his efforts have been weakened by the eagerness of Italy and some central and eastern European states to attract Chinese investment.

Mr Macron had invited Ms Merkel, the German chancellor, and Jean-Claude Juncker, head of the European Commission, to join him in Paris at the end of a bilateral summit with the Chinese president in a drive to underscore EU unity.