On June 11 local time in Brussels, Wu Shicun, Chairman of the Huayang Center for Maritime Cooperation and Ocean Governance and Chairman of the Academic Committee of the National Institute for South China Sea Studies, attended the closed-door roundtable of the 2026 Annual Conference of the Institute for China-Europe Studies (ICES) in Brussels, Belgium.

Around 50 experts and scholars attended the meeting, including representatives from the conference’s other co-organizers, the Institute for Security and Development Policy (ISDP) and the Institute for China-America Studies (ICAS), as well as think tanks and universities such as Chatham House, the European Policy Centre (EPC), the French Institute for Strategic Research (IRSEM), the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO), and the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. Officials from the Chinese Mission to the European Union also attended the meeting. Participants also included Members of the European Parliament and officials from the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Trade.

The meeting featured lively discussions on maritime governance and China-EU relations, as well as ways to narrow the “narrative gap” between China and Europe. During the meeting, Wu Shicun responded to concerns and questions raised by European scholars regarding the South China Sea arbitration, China’s historic rights in the South China Sea, and the current status of consultations on the Code of Conduct (COC) in the South China Sea.

On the same day, Wu Shicun and his delegation visited the Brussels office of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP), where they held exchanges with André Härtel, Head of the SWP Brussels Office; Senior Fellow Nadine Godehardt; and relevant researchers from SWP’s headquarters in Germany, who joined online. The two sides exchanged views on China-EU and China-Germany economic and trade relations, economic security, trade deficits, the Russia-Ukraine conflict, and the European security architecture, among other issues.

Wu Shicun also met with Bernard Dewit, Chairman of the Belgian-Chinese Chamber of Commerce, on the same day.

On June 12, Wu Shicun and his delegation paid a courtesy call on Ambassador Cai Run, Head of the Mission of the People’s Republic of China to the European Union, and held in-depth exchanges and discussions on China-EU relations, people-to-people exchanges, economic and trade cooperation, and the role of think tanks.

Yang Li, Executive Director of ICES, and Hong Nong, Executive Director of ICAS, participated in the above activities.