2024-05-06 09:04:22
After five years of absence, Xi Jinping is back in Europe with a first stop in France where China’s unfair trade practices will be discussed this Monday, May 6. President Macron intends to demand reciprocity in business. Is Europe finally waking up to China?
For a long time, China was perceived as Europe as a technologically secondary industrial nation. Today, the Twenty-Seven realize that Chinese companies can also compete in the areas of excellence of the industry of the Old Continent. After having virtually eliminated the European photovoltaic sector, the Chinese are able to repeat the maneuver in the electric vehicle.
Sustained by subsidies, Chinese industry produces vehicles at all costs, which it exports at slashing prices. The Chinese have captured 20% of the European market in two years. Something to worry European manufacturers. To block this fierce competition, perceived as an existential threat for Europe, in the words of President Macron, Europe is no longer content with giving its voice, it now brings out the legal artillery every time it considers himself in danger.
Europe’s new legal weapons
Four new procedures have been launched against the Chine since the beginning of the year. Based on the new foreign subsidy regulations introduced last summer. The European Commission denounced these practices in electric cars, then in railway construction, wind power and photovoltaics. Last week, Brussels also accused China of excluding European companies from the Chinese medical equipment market and threatened to ban the Chinese from European tenders in retaliation. A first for Europe.
Another spectacular intervention by the Commission: searches were carried out around ten days ago in the Dutch and Polish offices of Nuctech, the Chinese company which is extremely dominant in European airports for baggage scanning. A company that also has the means to suck up data is banned in Lithuania and to UNITED STATES. Finally, let us cite the warning addressed to Shein. The Chinese “fast fashion” platform is now placed on the same level as American internet giants and faces severe fines if it does not comply with the European regulation on digital services.
Chinese reprisals against French cognac
China has already taken retaliatory measures by launching an investigation on French cognac. It’s fair game. France is seen by Beijing, and rightly so, as the leading country in this change of direction for Europe. President Macron managed to bring the president of the commission Ursula von der Leyen to Paris this Monday morning for this session devoted to trade disputes.
On the other hand, the German chancellor declined. Emmanuel Macron recognizes that not all Europeans share his vision. “ Certain countrieshe told our colleagues at the Tribune, still see China as a market of opportunities », a remark which of course applies to theGermany. Xi Jinping can obviously play on Europe’s divisions, which is what he has done until now. He can also choose to spare Europe, at a time when China’s growth is slipping and its relationship with the United States is deteriorating.
Also read: Xi Jinping in France: “The European vision of China is a little different today”
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