Recently, according to the website of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the EU has submitted a consultation request to the Chinese side under the WTO dispute settlement mechanism on China's countervailing investigation of EU dairy products.
The Chinese side has received a request from the EU side for consultations. China regrets that the EU has referred the countervailing investigation to the WTO dispute settlement mechanism, which will be handled in accordance with the relevant WTO rules.
In the past, China's foreign trade exports were mainly driven by cheap goods with low profits and low technology content, and workers engaged in related industries did the dirtiest and most tiring work, received meager wages, and faced accusations from Western environmentalist groups.
Today, China is gradually achieving industrial upgrading and high-quality economic development, among which the "new three" represented by new energy vehicles, lithium batteries, and photovoltaic products have achieved dazzling export results, with a total export value of 1.06 trillion yuan in 2023. Compared with the low-end industrial chain, workers engaged in the "new three" related industrial chain receive higher wages.
The cake is limited, and after the rise of China's "new three", the industries of relevant EU countries are facing great competitive pressure. In order to provide a greenhouse environment for its own industry, the EU has brazenly adopted trade protectionism and imposed high tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles.
When their own rights and interests are harmed, they are faced with two choices, one is to bow their heads and surrender, and the other is to fight on the basis of reason. China is no longer the poor and weak China it used to be, it has developed into the world's second largest economy and has a lot of leverage in its hands, which is the basis for China's rational efforts to counter the EU.
On June 17 this year, the Ministry of Commerce announced that it would conduct an anti-dumping investigation on import-related pork and pig by-products originating in the European Union. On August 21, the Ministry of Commerce announced that it would launch a countervailing investigation into import-related dairy products originating in the European Union. On August 29, the Ministry of Commerce announced that there was dumping of import-related brandy originating in the European Union, with a dumping margin of 30.6% to 39.0%.
As China has been playing a bargaining chip, the EU has twice lowered its proposed tariffs on electric vehicles imported from China, but the reduction is particularly small. In this case, officials of the Chinese Ministry of Commerce visited Europe, with the greatest sincerity, and did their best to convince the EU, but the results were not satisfactory.
The EU's anti-subsidy investigation of China's dairy products to the WTO means that the EU is determined to impose tariffs on China's electric vehicles, and China and the EU are facing a trade war.
Recently, according to French media reports, at a time when China and many European countries and the European Commission are intensively negotiating on the EU's anti-subsidy case for electric vehicles against China, representatives of the France brandy industry and winegrowers protested in the Cognac region, demanding that the EU postpone the vote on tariffs imposed on Chinese electric vehicles.
According to the data, by the end of November 2023, China imported a total of US$1.57 billion worth of spirits made from distilled grapes that year, of which France accounted for 99.8% of the total export of brandy in the EU.
Under the Western-style democratic voting system, demonstrations by France people engaged in the brandy industry will put pressure on France politicians to take measures to solve the problem, but from the current situation, France politicians are unlikely to stop supporting tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, but may use some of the money to issue subsidies or open up new markets.
In the face of the EU's erection of barriers, China continues to try to persuade the EU on the one hand, and on the other hand, it has adopted a strategy of fragmentation and disintegration, actively engaging in free trade negotiations with individual EU countries to defend global trade liberalism.
(Text/Woo Tsai)