4th Europe China Forum

Giles Merritt is the Founder of Friends of Europe, and was its Secretary General between 1999 and 2015, and its Chairman between 2016 and 2020.

A former Financial Times Brussels Correspondent, Giles Merritt is a journalist, author and broadcaster who has for over four decades specialised in European public policy questions. In 2010 he was named by the Financial Times as one of its 30 most influential “Eurostars”, together with the European Commission’s President and NATO’s Secretary General.

Giles Merritt joined the Financial Times in 1968, and from 1972 until 1983 he was successively FT correspondent in Paris, Dublin/Belfast, and Brussels. From 1984 to 2010 he was a columnist for the International Herald Tribune (IHT), where his Op-Ed page articles ranged widely across EU political and economic issues.

In 1982 he published “World Out of Work”, an award-winning study of unemployment in industrialised countries. In 1991, his second book “The Challenge of Freedom” about the difficulties facing post-communist Eastern Europe was published in four languages. His book “Slippery Slope: Europe’s Troubled Future” (Oxford University Press 2016), was shortlisted for the European Book Prize.

With a distinguished history of foreign service, Zhang Lirong now leads the China Forum, part of Tsinghua University’s Center for International Security and Strategy. Before taking up his current role, he served as Minister and Deputy Head of Mission of the People’s Republic of China to the EU. With over 40 years of experience as a diplomat, Zhang’s career focussed largely on Western European affairs, eventually leading him to serve in both Denmark and the United Kingdom before moving to Brussels.

Ho is Senior Director of Build Your Dreams (BYD) and Managing Director of BYD Europe, a Chinese automobile business, with engagements in IT and new energy business. BYD was established in 1995 and is a globally leading producer of pure electric vehicles and rechargeable batteries today. As one of the leading players in electric vehicles in China, BYD is actively promoting their electric buses and electric taxies in the EU market. Ho looks back on a distinguished career in the Chinese private sector including top-level executive positions at companies such as Guangzhou TWS Electronics Limited and Neosonic.

Knapen is European Investment Bank Representative to the EU institutions in Brussels. From 2010 to 2012 he was The Netherlands Minister for European Affairs and International Cooperation, and has conducted working visits to Beijing to support cooperation and development.

Mauro Petriccione worked extensively on EU trade policy before joining the Directorate-General for Climate Action, covering a wide range of activities and negotiations, from trade and standards, to defence, investment, competition and dispute settlement, as well as relations with member states and European institutions. He was the deputy director-general for trade, responsible for trade relations with Asia, Latin America and countries of Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific. Petriccione also served as chief negotiator for the EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement and the EU-Japan Economic Partnership Agreement.

Serban is General Secretary at The European Development Platform and Vice-President of the Human Values Foundation. She is also Partner at ND European Business Development, linking EU Member States with Chinese and American business partners.

As President, Chi Fulin leads the China Institute for Reform and Development’s efforts to facilitate China’s economic and development policy. He has published over 500 academic papers and is the recipient of numerous awards. Chi was listed in 2009 as one of the ‘100 Economists that have influenced China’s economic construction in the last 60 years’. In addition to his role at CIRD, he serves in numerous leadership positions including as Vice-Chairman of the China Society of Economic and Administrative Reform.

At the EESC, Peel has been involved in the activities with China as a member of the EU-China roundtable initiated in 2007, for which he has been Rapporteur on Trade and Investment and on Corporate Social Responsibility issues. Moreover he has been President of the Permanent study group on the WTO and international trade. Previously Peel has been member of the EU Food Industry Council Board and chaired the Trade Expert group.

Sammaritano joined the DG Research and Innovation in 2009 where he is currently responsible for relations with China. Among his main achievements, he has coordinated the Science and Technology Policy Dialogue, the new Innovation Cooperation Dialogue, the development of joint research programmes, and supervised EU-funded research policy support projects targeting China.

Wang is responsible for national employment policy research and policy advisory at the International Labour Organization (ILO). Before joining the ILO, Wang has been working at the Ministry of Labour and Social Security, at the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, and at the Office of Inter-ministerial Meeting for National Employment Policy under the State Council. Wang was one of the main drafters of China’s first national Employment Policy 2002 and took the lead in drafting China Employment Promotion Law enacted in 2007.

Wen is a scholar, activist and writer, currently based in Germany. Over the last decade, her work displayed a strong  focus on sustainable agriculture, climate change, energy security, and urbanization and she built close networks with organisations such as Third World Network, South Center and the International Forum on Globalization. In 2005, she published the book China Copes with Globalization, which examines the environmental and social impacts of China’s breakneck industrialisation. Over the last few years Wen has followed the international climate negotiations closely, and has substantial insights into the Chinese government’s reasoning and policy towards climate action and the current development trajectory on sustainability.

Ainley is a student from the College of Europe with BA in European Modern History from Oxford University. Ms. Ainley has worked as Seconded National Expert for DG ECHO, European Commission, and EU Policy Officer at the UK Government Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. She has also been been part of the EU delegation to China and Mongolia.

Shen is Director of Confucius Institute and Professor of International Business at Management School of Lancaster University, UK, and holds the Jean Monnet Chair in EU-China relations funded by the European Commission. Shen has PhD in Human Geography, and is published widely on the topics of Asia-Europe relations, international education, migration and China’s economy and global role.

Yan is a student from the College of Europe, and PhD candidate in European Studies at the University of Hong Kong, where he researches EU-China relations from a Social Constructivist perspective. Yan has been a member of the Model ASEM and Model UN, and also has teaching experience.