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BEIJING, July 4 - China has cancelled a trip by European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell scheduled for next week, an EU spokesperson said on Tuesday. "We want to engage with China but we need progress and we need it this year," Toledo said. In a prepared speech for delivery in Beijing in April, Borrell had said that EU cannot trust China if it does not seek peace in Ukraine. China has said it wants to broker a peace in Ukraine but its position paper released in February was met with lukewarm responses by both Russia and Ukraine. EU climate chief Frans Timmermans, who is in Beijing this week for environment talks, also failed to visit China in April because he caught COVID-19.

Persons: Josep Borrell, Nabila Massrali, Borrell, Jorge Toledo, Toledo, Frans Timmermans, COVID, Yew Lun Tian, Martin Quin Pollard, Conor Humphries, David Holmes Organizations: European Union, Reuters, Sunday, EU, Thomson Locations: BEIJING, China, Europe, Brussels, Beijing, Ukraine, Russia, EU

REUTERS/Thomas PeterBEIJING, Nov 29 (Reuters) - The rare street protests that erupted in cities across China over the weekend were a referendum against President Xi Jinping's zero-COVID policy and the strongest public defiance during his political career, China analysts said. Public dissatisfaction with Xi's zero-COVID policy, expressed on social media or offline in the form of putting up posters in universities or by protesting, is Xi's biggest domestic challenge since the 2019 protests in Hong Kong against an extradition bill. Although this authoritarian arrangement allowed Xi to be more powerful, it also contains vulnerabilities, as exposed by the protests, analysts said. "If he lets go, it would mean that his past zero-COVID policy has completely failed and he would have to take responsibility for it. Xi tried tweaking the zero-COVID policy with the release of "20 measures" last month, in an attempt to standardize prevention measures nationwide and make them friendlier to residents and to the economy.

Passengers help a baby wear a mask at the Shanghai railway station in China, as the country is hit by an outbreak of the novel coronavirus, February 9, 2020. REUTERS/Aly SongBEIJING, Oct 16 (Reuters) - China will enact policies to boost its birth rate, President Xi Jinping said on Sunday, as policymakers worry that an imminent decline in China's population could hurt the world's second-biggest economy. "We will establish a policy system to boost birth rates and pursue a proactive national strategy in response to population ageing," Xi told some 2,300 delegates in a speech opening the once-in-five-year Communist Party Congress in Beijing. Its fertility rate of 1.16 in 2021 was below the 2.1 OECD standard for a stable population and among the lowest in the world. Still, the desire among Chinese women to have children is the lowest in the world, a survey published in February by think-tank YuWa Population Research showed.

"Given the economic and social strain caused by sticking to an increasingly unpopular COVID zero policy, Xi's speech might sound defensive to many Chinese citizens, insisting that the Party has their best interests in mind. ALFRED WU, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, LEE KUAN YEW SCHOOL OF PUBLIC POLICY, NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF SINGAPORE"It is obvious that security is Xi's greatest concern. ZHIWU CHEN, PROFESSOR OF FINANCE, UNIVERSITY OF HONG KONG"One significant change is to de-emphasise economic development and economic reform. BATES GILL, PROFESSOR, DEPARTMENT OF SECURITY STUDIES AND CRIMINOLOGY, MACQUARIE UNIVERSITY, SYDNEY"This speech said 'continuity' and full speed ahead. "But this was not intended as a policy speech.

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