Sparks flew in a Beijing conference room this week, as diplomats, officials and experts from Europe and China clashed over their deepening trade problems.

Chinese speakers were accused of dismissing Europe’s long-standing complaints and ignoring the harsh economic reality of an increasingly lopsided trading relationship.

EU diplomats were accused of “bullying”, while the bloc’s policies were billed as “protectionist” efforts to decouple from China.

At the acrimonious event hosted by the European Union on Tuesday, the two sides bickered not only over policy but also over who was at fault for the broad deterioration in their ties. The blame game suggests that an off-ramp in their rapid descent towards a trade war may be hard to find.

On one fiery panel billed as “EU-China trade relations, partnership or sinking ship?”, top European business figures and observers looked exasperated as Chinese speakers disregarded their insistence that Europe remained comparably open to Chinese goods.

“It is neither a sinking ship nor a partnership – it’s a 400-metre-long giant container ship loaded with 24,000 containers going to Europe and coming back almost empty,” said Jens Eskelund, president of the EU Chamber of Commerce in China.

In response, Jian Junbo, a researcher at Fudan University’s Centre for China-EU Relations, said it was “unfortunate that the EU is taking decoupling policies with China”, adding that the pair should “work together to fight protectionism”.