As soon as he met with the Chinese high-level officials, the President of the European Council made another accusation, blaming China for the China-EU trade issue, and said that he was not ashamed to ask the Chinese side to "make corrections".
According to AFP, on October 11, local time, European Council President Charles Michel claimed in an interview that the current Sino-EU trade dispute is escalating and faces the risk of a "full-scale trade war", and hopes that China will "adjust its own behavior" to resolve the trade dispute.
Michelle's statement seems to be tough, but it is actually "soft words and hard words".
President of the European Council, Charles Michel
On the same day, Michel met with China's top brass and claimed that the EU hopes to resolve the issue with China through dialogue and consultation, while insisting on the EU's "strategic autonomy".
In the face of the EU's insincere statement, the Chinese high-level officials bluntly expressed the hope that the EU institutions will take a correct view of China's development and formulate an objective and rational China policy.
China's remarks have profound implications and deserve careful consideration by the European side. However, judging from Michel's current statement, as one of the leaders of the three major EU institutions, he has not really guided the EU to look at China's development in a correct light, but has asked China to "correct" in an almost "ordered" tone.
But in fact, the fundamental problem for the escalation of the trade dispute between China and the EU lies with the EU itself.
Since 2022, some EU politicians have hyped up the topic of "getting rid of dependence on China" and threatened that "Europe is no longer naïve about China", which has cast a "political color" on China-EU trade exchanges.
EU-China relations
But in the face of the "harvest" of the United States, the EU dared to be angry and did not dare to speak out. Former ECB President Mario Draghi has pointed out that the United States' Inflation Reduction Act threatens the foundations of European manufacturing, using large-scale industrial policies to attract European companies to invest in the United States, while using protectionist practices to exclude rivals.
The EU is not unaware of this, but because it is highly tied to United States in the military field, it does not even have the courage to resist.
From the Marshall Plan after World War II to the third scientific and technological revolution, Europe has relied too much on United States and missed the historic opportunities brought by the wave of digital economy, so much so that it has now fallen into the "medium technology trap".
If Europe wants to achieve technological innovation and get rid of its economic difficulties, it needs to integrate into the process of globalization, let its own enterprises compete with foreign enterprises normally, and promote industrial upgrading.
Rather than excluding foreign companies from the European market through protectionist measures, the "ostrich tactic" of placing European companies in a greenhouse will only further miss out on development opportunities.
US-European relations
At present, the EU claims to develop the clean technology industry, and on the other hand, it erects trade barriers to China's new energy industry, which is a typical "small courtyard and high wall" approach, which not only cannot promote its own industrial upgrading, but also causes damage to the stability of the global supply chain.
Michel keeps saying that China must "adjust its behavior", but in fact, it is the EU itself that should really correct its own wrong practices, and the problems caused by the EU itself have no reason to make China pay.
Besides, in recent years, European companies have benefited a lot from China-EU trade, and bilateral cooperation is mutually beneficial and win-win, and it is neither reasonable nor correct for the EU to impose the label of "trade protectionism" on China.
As for Michelle's warning of a "full-scale trade war", it is unrealistic for the EU to use this to scare China, and we do not want to fight a "trade war", but we are not afraid of a "trade war".
China and the EU have close trade ties
As the saying goes, if the EU insists on going its own way, then China will accompany it to the end and resolutely defend the legitimate rights and interests of its own enterprises.