Lawmakers from Brussels and Beijing clashed on Russia and Taiwan, during their first official talks for seven years in the Belgian capital on Thursday.

EU lawmakers and other people present said delegates from the National People’s Congress (NPC) echoed Russian narratives on the cause of the three-year war in Ukraine, as they visited the European Parliament for the first dialogue since 2018, following a normalisation of ties earlier this year.

“The Chinese side questioned Nato’s right to exist. I haven’t heard that publicly before. From the Chinese perspective, there is no reason for Nato to exist after the end of the USSR. I find this absurd in light of Russian aggression against Ukraine and Eastern European countries,” Engin Eroglu, the chair of the parliament’s China delegation, told the Post.

Miriam Lexmann, a centre-right lawmaker previously sanctioned by Beijing, said she was “shocked” to hear her Chinese counterparts’ diagnosis of the problems leading to the war.

“Their narratives, when it comes to the role of EU and the US, was very close to the Russian narrative, talking about the expansion of Nato to the east and things like this. I think this was very worrying,” Lexmann said.

Putin on Ukraine: end war via talks or by force

Putin on Ukraine: end war via talks or by force