China’s global exports in the first 11 months outpaced imports by more than $1 trillion, with a significant portion generated by shipments to the EU (-) <\/p>\n
China’s mammoth trade surplus with Europe as well as challenges faced by foreign firms in the country are incentivising Brussels to adopt more “offensive” policies, a business lobby warned Wednesday.<\/p>\n
The report by the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China underscores the turbulence in economic ties between the key trading partners, as they navigate heightened uncertainty sparked by Beijing-Washington tensions.<\/p>\n
Data this week showed that China’s global exports in the first 11 months of the year outpaced imports by more than $1 trillion, reaching the historic milestone even before December.<\/p>\n
A significant portion of that surplus was generated by shipments to the European Union, which last year ran a trade deficit with the country of more than $350 billion.<\/p>\n
China is “continuing to export ever greater quantities of goods to the EU — in part to compensate for weak domestic demand relative to supply growth”, wrote the EU Chamber of Commerce in China in a report Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Beijing is also “failing to address several long-standing concerns that European companies have about the country’s business environment”, it added.<\/p>\n
The trends mean that “China is pushing the EU to take a more offensive approach to its China policy than it currently does”, the report said.<\/p>\n
The warning comes less than a week after French President Emmanuel Macron said Europe would consider adopting strong measures against China — including tariffs — if the trade imbalance was not addressed.<\/p>\n
It also follows the Chamber’s publication of a survey earlier this month showing that one in three member companies were looking to shift sourcing out of China in response to tight export controls introduced this year by Beijing.<\/p>\n
The measures, which sent shockwaves across global manufacturing industries, include licence requirements for shipments of rare earth elements crucial to automobiles, defence equipment and other items.<\/p>\n
Beijing maintains its steps were necessary for national security, though they were widely viewed as retaliation in its trade war with the United States, now paused in a precarious truce.<\/p>\n
“The rare earths situation was a wake-up call for Europe,” said EU Chamber of Commerce in China president Jens Eskelund at a media event this week ahead of the report’s release.<\/p>\n
“You cannot assume that you will not inadvertently become collateral damage to someone else’s fight,” he added.<\/p>\n
The predicament is “scary” for companies and governments alike, said Eskelund.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"China’s global exports in the first 11 months outpaced imports by more than $1 trillion, with a significant…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":623619,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5174],"tags":[3801,1395,2000,299,5187,193811,28650,73022],"class_list":{"0":"post-623618","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eu","8":"tag-beijing","9":"tag-china","10":"tag-eu","11":"tag-europe","12":"tag-european","13":"tag-global-exports","14":"tag-the-eu","15":"tag-trade-surplus"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115693769639181331","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/623618","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=623618"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/623618\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/623619"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=623618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=623618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=623618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}