How did we get here? How did, did we get to last week where European leaders sit down and say, "Well, we have to do something about this"?

Very slowly.

Uh, [chuckles] maybe, maybe a more appropriate question is why did it take so long? Um, how, how did this not happen sooner? Um, you know, I'm the one, um, journalist who goes to each of these councils, Foreign Affairs Council or European Council, diligently with my notebook in the expectation that they're gonna discuss China.

But remarkably, this was the first time in three years that the leaders had a substantive discussion about China policy.

And just to, to sort of, uh, let the listeners know, this was a discussion about China policy, but you wouldn't have known that if you were only reading the agenda, or you were only looking at the invitation letter, or you were only indeed reading the actual conclusions of the, uh, of the summit itself.

I mean, this was about a mysterious actor called global, global macroeconomic imbalances.

It's the Voldemort syndrome that we...

So I was wondering if you've read anything regarding the EU-China relationship, but China's response to EU's actions before yesterday and after yesterday that can give us a bit of a sense of where China is and, and, and what its position and perception is of, of the European Union, the processes ahead.