China unexpectedly cancels top EU diplomat's Beijing visit

China connected Tuesday canceled a planned sojourn by the European Union's overseas argumentation main that was scheduled for adjacent week without providing a circumstantial reason.

High Representative for Foreign Affairs Josep Borrell was initially owed to sojourn Beijing successful April for the yearly EU-China strategical dialog with Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang, but that was delayed aft Borrell tested affirmative for Covid-19.

On Wednesday, an EU overseas affairs spokesperson confirmed to CNBC that Borrell's squad had been told by their Chinese counterparts the caller dates of July 10-11 were nary longer imaginable and an alternate would request to beryllium found. Topics nether treatment were acceptable to see quality rights and Russia's warfare successful Ukraine.

Chinese overseas ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin declined to supply a crushed for the cancellation astatine a briefing Wednesday, but added: "We invited High Level Representative Borrell to sojourn China astatine the earliest clip convenient to some sides," according to a Reuters report.

CNBC has contacted China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs for comment.

The cancellation, oregon imaginable postponement, comes up of a scheduled sojourn to Beijing by U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen connected Thursday.

China connected Monday announced caller export restrictions connected 2 metals, germanium and gallium, which are key to the manufacturing of semiconductors and electronics and person uses from subject instrumentality to mobile phones.

The quality has driven prices of the metals higher portion besides pushing companies into a scramble to enactment up supplies, according to Reuters.

In caller years, the U.S. has progressively used export restrictions and trade blacklists against China arsenic it seeks to curb the maturation of its technological power.

Former Chinese Vice Commerce Minister Wei Jianguo told the China Daily newspaper the latest measures connected Monday were "just the beginning" and that "if the high-tech restrictions connected China go tougher successful the future, China's countermeasures volition besides escalate."

"It's weaponizing that uncommon world and captious minerals proviso chain," Rebecca Harding, commercialized and governmental hazard specializer and elder chap astatine the British Foreign Policy Group, told CNBC's "Squawk Box Europe" connected Wednesday.

"[There] is an constituent of mutually assured demolition due to the fact that you can't manufacture chips if you haven't got the proviso chains. But these export controls are going to beryllium reasonably limited," she said.

She added the measures could beryllium seen arsenic retaliatory for actions of not conscionable the United States but besides the Netherlands, a important semiconductor machinery hub, which past week announced caller export restrictions on precocious semiconductor equipment. There is improbable to beryllium "any imminent rowing back," Harding added.