European Union policy makers will meet their Chinese counterparts on Thursday and Friday for the second round of the talks designed to help revive battered trade negotiations. But these talks, dubbed the "High Level Economic and Trade Dialogue Mechanism," won't deliver much if China and the EU are not prepared to get real and put the emphasis on the key commercial concerns.

EU-China relations hit a low in late 2008, when French President Nicholas Sarkozy met the Dalai Lama and China cancelled the EU-China Summit in retaliation. Since then the diplomatic tones have become less shrill. Mutual trade has plummeted in the wake of the global economic downturn, hurting both trading blocs. There are signs that both sides wish to find a way back to the negotiation table. Yet the pace of...