{"id":283685,"date":"2025-07-22T23:03:19","date_gmt":"2025-07-22T23:03:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/283685\/"},"modified":"2025-07-22T23:03:19","modified_gmt":"2025-07-22T23:03:19","slug":"sanctioned-german-china-expert-visits-beijing-in-sign-of-easing-restrictions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/283685\/","title":{"rendered":"Sanctioned German China expert visits Beijing in sign of easing restrictions"},"content":{"rendered":"<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">The head of a German think tank sanctioned by Beijing four years ago has returned from a trip to China, suggesting that travel restrictions on the organisation may be easing.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Mikko Huotari, the executive director of the Mercator Institute for China Studies (Merics) was in Beijing from July 14 to 17, after being invited by a leading Chinese think tank.<\/p>\n<p>Merics was among the European institutions <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_self\" class=\"e1yy41x40 ef9u0v01 css-1ankfgb ecgc78b0\" href=\"https:\/\/sc.mp\/cmoz?utm_source=copy-link&amp;utm_campaign=3126487&amp;utm_medium=share_widget\" title=\"\" data-qa=\"BaseLink-renderAnchor-StyledAnchor\">hit with travel bans and asset freezes<\/a> in March 2021, in retaliation for EU sanctions on Chinese officials accused of perpetrating human rights violations in Xinjiang, charges it denies.The news comes on the eve of a high-stakes <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_self\" class=\"e1yy41x40 ef9u0v01 css-1ankfgb ecgc78b0\" href=\"https:\/\/sc.mp\/o5hrw?utm_source=copy-link&amp;utm_campaign=3318045&amp;utm_medium=share_widget\" title=\"\" data-qa=\"BaseLink-renderAnchor-StyledAnchor\">EU-China summit<\/a>. It also comes the week after Beijing <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_self\" class=\"e1yy41x40 ef9u0v01 css-1ankfgb ecgc78b0\" href=\"https:\/\/sc.mp\/m5jv2?utm_source=copy-link&amp;utm_campaign=3318351&amp;utm_medium=share_widget\" title=\"\" data-qa=\"BaseLink-renderAnchor-StyledAnchor\">further loosened<\/a> its restrictions on members of the European Parliament, suggesting the Chinese government may be trying to improve the mood music ahead of an event that has been mired in negativity.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">\u201cWe welcome the easing of travel restrictions and hope that more engagement between researchers and think tankers will be possible in the future. We look forward to future opportunities to engage with our Chinese counterparts whether in China, at MERICS or elsewhere in Europe,\u201d Merics said in a statement.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, and EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Kaja Kallas hold the 13th round of China-EU High-level Strategic Dialogue in Brussels, Belgium, on July 2. Photo: Xinhua\" data-qa=\"BaseImage-handleRenderImage-StyledImage\" class=\"e1gf69pb2 css-6ikqhs e445x7d0\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/1b816f88-5ffa-487b-b5c8-d2750dc91caf_14cd2769.jpg\" title=\"Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, and EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Kaja Kallas hold the 13th round of China-EU High-level Strategic Dialogue in Brussels, Belgium, on July 2. Photo: Xinhua\"\/>Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, and EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Kaja Kallas hold the 13th round of China-EU High-level Strategic Dialogue in Brussels, Belgium, on July 2. Photo: Xinhua<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">One of Europe\u2019s largest China-focused think tanks, Merics researchers have been unable to travel to China for four years and EU leaders and officials have repeatedly called on Beijing to remove the sanctions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The head of a German think tank sanctioned by Beijing four years ago has returned from a trip&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":283686,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5310],"tags":[521,51,1395,1700,2000,299,1824,3749,388,12,391,47141,93,53,978,26],"class_list":{"0":"post-283685","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-germany","8":"tag-asia","9":"tag-business","10":"tag-china","11":"tag-economy","12":"tag-eu","13":"tag-europe","14":"tag-germany","15":"tag-hong-kong","16":"tag-lifestyle","17":"tag-news","18":"tag-opinion","19":"tag-south-china-morning-post","20":"tag-sport","21":"tag-technology","22":"tag-us","23":"tag-world"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114899387940303517","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=283685"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283685\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/283686"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=283685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=283685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=283685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}