Brussels has said that negotiations with Beijing on an investment treaty are entering a “critical stage”, warning that it is readying new instruments to restrict Chinese investment into Europe unless China agrees to level the playing field on trade. 

Valdis Dombrovskis, the European Commission’s executive vice-president in charge of economic policy, told the Financial Times that the EU was determined to address “a great asymmetry in market access”.

EU trade officials have said that the prospects for an agreement should become clearer by the end of July, following signals from Beijing that it would come forward with proposals to advance the most difficult sticking points in the talks. A “high-level economic and trade dialogue” meeting is in the works for that month.