Beijing’s objection to two European officials who criticized its handling of Hong Kong and Xinjiang issues was behind the quiet cancelation of an annual business forum between China and the European Union last month, the Wall Street Journal reported.

EU organizers of the event declined to accede to the Beijing government’s request to bar the participation of the two representatives, who had openly spoken out against the treatment of human rights in the two Chinese regions before, the newspaper said, quoting unnamed sources.

The pair are understood to be Reinhard Butikofer, chair of the European Parliament’s Delegation for Relations with the People’s Republic of China, and Mikko Huotari, executive director of the German think tank Mercator Institute for China Studies.

It is the first time that the Chinese authorities have targeted senior executives of the European Parliament responsible for relations between the EU and China. Previously, Beijing had tried to block German academics, politicians and journalists from taking part in other activities.

The news report said that as China strengthened by the day, Europe would have to deal with the challenge of protecting business interests while upholding democratic values. The scrapping of the event signaled Europe’s hardening stance toward China, it added.

The fourth edition of the China-EU CEO and Former Senior Officials Dialogue was supposed to have taken place behind closed doors last month via video link, co-hosted by the China Center for International Economic Exchanges and BusinessEurope. Around 40 chief executives, senior officials and academics from European countries and China had been invited.

Peter Sennekamp, spokesperson for BusinessEurope, said the past three rounds of dialogue, alternatively held in Brussels and Beijing, had been a great success. He regretted that this year’s forum was “forced to be canceled,” he said.

At the CCIEE, a spokesperson said that the center hoped to resume the event in a face-to-face format next year. The pandemic had compelled the Chinese to delay trade dialogue with other countries, the spokesperson said.

When pressed for the real reason behind this year’s cancelation, the CCIEE would only say the purpose of the forum was to promote international economic research and trade cooperation, but that some participants appeared not to fit the principles or goals of the event. In the past, there had also been cases of participants flouting event regulations about not exposing the identities of speakers.

Jorg Wuttke, president of the EU Chamber of Commerce in China, said he had once turned down a request from Beijing to bar the attendance of a corporate representative at one of the chamber’s events, but that event still went ahead as planned.

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