Jul 5, 2022
#NiceToMeetEU: Michelle ZHANG, China
Location
Beijing
China
A pleasure to participate in the EUVP of 2022 term! Due to the ongoing pandemic, in prior to my in-person visit, I was kindly offered the chance to make great online exchanges with 8 departments of the EU Commission and Parliament. Appreciate again for the thoughtful arrangement of the EUVP team (particularly Mr Piotr BARTOSZEWICZ-MALICKI, Ms Rossela PAINO, Mr Ondrej WAGNER and Ms Karina BUCUR)! Discussions were organized in a highly efficient manner. Talking to the people is a great way to gain a more vivid understanding in the EU - even more looking forward to my following visit to Brussels!
#NiceToMeetEU: Michelle ZHANG, China
- Name: Michelle ZHANG
- Country: China
- Function & responsibilities: National Vice Chair of Rail Working Group, European Union Chamber of Commerce in China (European Chamber)
- Responsibility: In the Working Group, I am leading the rail industrial peers to advocate for the common issues that European enterprises are facing, with Chinese central and local governments, for example, to ensure the transparency of policy formulation, fair play, SOE reform and business environment improvement etc.
- Organisation: European Chamber was founded in 2000 by 51 member companies that shared a goal of establishing a common voice for the various business sectors of the European Union and European businesses operating in China. By now, there are in total of more than 1,700 members in the European Chamber.
- About me: As a government affairs professional who has been in following policies for more than 12 years, I am both a messenger and advocator for European businesses with Chinese government. It is a great pleasure to gain a first-hand knowledge in the EU’s goals, policies and peoples, and to increase mutual understanding and cross-cultural communication between the EU and China. It is a valuable help to my daily work and a great way to facilitate the bilateral relationship.
- My best memory of the EUVP programme: so far is to build remote connections with different departments of the EU Commission and Parliament. In the post-COVID-19 era, a lot of people-to-people connection is cut off. However, with these online exchanges, it’ll be a great help for future in-person visit. I personally enjoyed the online communication very much.
- I would welcome connection requests from the Alumni: please feel free to reach me if you are interested in European business community and their development in China, an emerging market with great potential to improve its business environment. Particularly now Chinese national leaders strive to benchmark with international standards and take bigger role in global challenges like climate change.
- I would be happy to discuss the topics of: EU-China relationship, globalization, regional development and sectoral topics in rail transportation sector.
- The challenges that I/my organisation face(s) and would like the support of other Alumni are: I am interested to learn how other countries think of China now. With both the “wolf worrier” diplomacy and strong intention to “tell Chinese story well”, it’ll be a fresh perspective to understand Chinese international images from other alumni.
- Contact me in English please.
- My hopes for the EU relations with my country are: for the benefit of European businesses in China, it will be great pleasure to see a mutual-beneficial EU-China relationship in the foreseeable future. Stable bilateral relationship is imperative to trade, investment and multinational's operations in China.
- …and any other information you would like to include: I am an outgoing person with many hobbies: camping, trekking, playing piano, singing Karaoke and writing calligraphy. Looking forward to more connection with interesting souls of EUVP alumni!
