China has cleared the way for a landmark visit by the Dutch trade minister \u2013 signalled by Beijing\u2019s quiet removal of long-held sanctions on the official \u2013 at a time when their bilateral relations need some attention, according to people familiar with the matter.<\/p>\n
Beijing has agreed to host Sjoerd Sjoerdsma for a visit and has removed him from the sanction list, a source said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo date is fixed yet [between Beijing and The Hague] \u2026 only that it is supposed to take place before the summer,\u201d the source said, adding that Sjoerdsma was currently in talks with various industry groups over his planned visit.<\/p>\n
If the trip pans out, Sjoerdsma would become the first minister from the new Dutch government, sworn in on February 23, to visit China.<\/p>\n
He first expressed his intention to lead a trade mission to Beijing last month during his meeting with China\u2019s commerce minister, Wang Wentao, on the sidelines of a World Trade Organization summit in Cameroon.<\/p>\n
Sjoerdsma was sanctioned by Beijing in 2021<\/a> for his criticism of alleged human rights abuses in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, which Beijing has long denied. Chinese authorities have previously declined to comment<\/a> when asked if Sjoerdsma was still on the sanction list.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"China has cleared the way for a landmark visit by the Dutch trade minister \u2013 signalled by Beijing\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6486,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[65,1362,87,5838,1359,816,5836,5840,5839,5841,5044,5835,42,540,5837],"class_list":{"0":"post-6485","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-asml","8":"tag-asml","9":"tag-beijing","10":"tag-china","11":"tag-chinageopolitics","12":"tag-chinese","13":"tag-dutch","14":"tag-heleen-herbert","15":"tag-mivd","16":"tag-moscow","17":"tag-nexperia","18":"tag-russia","19":"tag-sjoerd-sjoerdsma","20":"tag-the-hague","21":"tag-us","22":"tag-xinjiang"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6485","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6485"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6485\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6486"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}