Catherine Colonna’s visit to China (23-24 November 2023)

Catherine Colonna, Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs, will go to China on 23 and 24 November. She will co-chair the sixth session of the high-level dialogue on people-to-people exchanges with Wang Yi, China’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, in Beijing. This dialogue concludes the series of high-level dialogues following President Macron’s State visit to China in April (high-level economic and financial dialogue on 29-30 July; strategic dialogue on 29-30 October).

It will be the first session since October 2019 of this mechanism introduced by the two countries’ heads of State during President Xi Jinping’s first State visit to France in March 2014, to encourage exchanges between our two countries on education, science, technology and innovation, culture, cultural and creative industries, health, sport, tourism and gastronomy, decentralized cooperation, young people, women’s rights and gender equality. This dialogue will enable the two ministers to review the state of cooperation in these areas and sketch out possible ways of developing balanced exchanges that are in our two countries’ interests, based on concrete projects. Several agreements will be signed.

The Minister will also speak to her counterpart about all aspects of the bilateral relationship, global challenges – in particular in the run-up to COP28 – and major international crises. Following their meeting, the two ministers will hold a joint press conference that will provide an opportunity to set out the key points of the programming for celebrations of the 60th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between France and China and for the Franco-Chinese Year of Cultural Tourism in 2024.

The Minister will have a meeting with Chinese Premier Li Qiang.