New Delhi, July 3 -- COPENHAGEN - The nations Wang Yi chose for his first European diplomatic tour of the summer are not random stops. They are four of the governments that European diplomatic circles most reliably describe as Beijing's sharpest critics inside the EU and NATO. He arrived in Copenhagen on Thursday anyway.

that China and Europe are partners, not rivals, and that cooperation should be "the fundamental and defining feature" of China-Europe relations.

That framing is doing heavy lifting at a specific diplomatic moment. The European Union has set an October deadline for resolving mounting trade imbalances with China, and European industries exposed to Chinese competition in electric vehicles, solar panels and battery storage ...