India, Oct. 9 -- The European Union (EU) is bracing for a confrontation with China as a trade deficit exceeding $1 billion a day heightens anxiety over potential job losses and pushes the bloc's political leaders to take a more aggressive approach toward its second-largest trading partner.

The European Commission's top trade envoy, Maros Sefcovic, will be in Beijing on Thursday for a two-day meeting with Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao. The goal is narrowing the EU's 360-billion-euro trade deficit with China. Earlier this year, he gave Beijing a deadline of October to provide meaningful results in doing so. Politicians and economists across the 27-nation bloc consider China's massive subsidies and exports a major threat to core ind...