PARIS — Airbus agreed on Thursday to build a second assembly line at its factory in China and was given a green light by Beijing to move ahead with 160 previously announced plane orders. The deal was a pointed reminder of how China remains a critical market for European companies, even as American manufacturers are pulling up stakes.
The accord was signed in Beijing by Airbus’s chief executive, Guillaume Faury, who was part of an economic delegation accompanying President Emmanuel Macron of France and President Ursula von der Leyen of the European Union on an ambitious state visit with China’s top leader, Xi Jinping.
Airbus is working to expand production of its best-selling A320 single-aisle jet, and drum up more sales in China, whose leaders have taken pains recently to try to show the world that the country is open for business after it doubled down on pandemic lockdowns last year. Under the deal, the world’s largest plane maker will double production capacity of the A320 at its factory in Tianjin, in an aviation market that is the fastest-growing in the world.
And after trumpeting a major agreement last year in which China promised to buy 292 new Airbus aircraft, worth nearly $40 billion before discounts, the company said that the Chinese government on Thursday gave approval for Airbus to start making 160 of those planes.
The deal “underpins the positive recovery momentum and prosperous outlook for the Chinese aviation market,” Mr. Faury said in a statement, adding that the company was “privileged to remain a partner of choice in shaping the future of civil aviation in China.”
Europe has been under pressure from the Biden administration to isolate Beijing by imposing more trade curbs on sensitive technologies, such as semiconductors that could have military uses. Talk of economic decoupling is rife, and Apple has shifted some production to India and Vietnam, although most of its revenue still comes from Chinese-made products.
Ms. von der Leyen said in a speech ahead of the trip that E.U. countries needed to reduce risk and “rebalance” economic ties with China. But other European leaders, and Mr. Macron in particular, have sought to maintain strong economic links despite China’s increasing assertiveness and support for Russia.
Mr. Macron, who arrived in China on Wednesday, has spent the bulk of the visit trying to carve out a distinct role for Europe that avoids confrontation, while also seeking to provide a place for China in ending the war in Ukraine. Around 50 French business leaders accompanied Mr. Macron in an effort to maintain commercial links.
The Airbus deal, while more modest than expected, nonetheless underscored the continued importance of China as a major trading partner to Europe, one that Mr. Macron is reluctant to give up.
Last year, China was the third-largest trade partner for European Union exports of goods, and the largest source of goods imported to the bloc. France is Europe’s second-biggest exporter of goods to China, behind Germany.
