Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi kicks off a rare tour of Europe’s Nordic countries on Thursday, as Beijing tests whether it can use shifting geopolitical sands to find openings among some of the bloc’s most China-critical governments.
The veteran diplomat will be in Denmark on Thursday and Friday for a series of meetings with Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen and a personal audience with King Frederik.
In Stockholm he will meet Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson and Foreign Minister Maria Malmer Stenergard, before heading to Helsinki to meet Finnish President Alexander Stubb and top diplomat Elina Valtonen.
Wang will round off his whistle-stop tour with a stop in Oslo, to meet Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide on July 8.
The trip comes at a moment of immense flux in global affairs.
Earlier this week, Brussels set a strict October deadline for an improvement in the trade imbalances with China following crunch talks in the Belgian capital. Wang touches down less than a fortnight after the EU’s national leaders opted for a more robust policy towards Beijing, amid fears of an industrial shock to the European economy.