Europe’s phoney war with China is at an end. After years of building up an improved arsenal for a trade war, Europe is now showing it is willing to get tough on Beijing.
On Tuesday, EU investigators swooped on the Dutch and Polish offices of Nuctech, a maker of security scanners, in a case that hinges on one of Europe’s longest running grievances with China — lavish state subsidies that help Chinese firms undercut European rivals.
Nuctech was once run by Hu Haifeng, son of President Xi Jinping’s predecessor, Hu Jintao, and China’s reaction was predictably seething. The raid “highlights the further deterioration of the EU’s business environment and sends an extremely negative signal to all foreign companies,” China’s mission to the EU fumed.
The timing of such an inflammatory raid seems significant, ahead of a trip to Europe by Xi next month — his first in five years, taking him to France, Serbia and Hungary — marking a definitive shift in the way that Europe is prepared to tackle its trade problems with China.
Right, maybe I can be more clear on my stance then.
I don’t agree with the outcome, nor am I saying it’s a good thing china is doing. I mean I’m impacted by the EU’s decisions as a part of it, so I would be shooting myself in the foot.
What I’m saying is, the EU has been consistently making naive decisions when it comes to enforcing its economic safety. Making free trade agreements that would negatively impact its internal economical balance and turn out to be very much one sided, and not taking preemptive or earlier measures against china’s obvious economical dogma. It’s been decades. While I am indeed glad they finally do something about it, I’m just worried about the time it took them to realize the Chinese could be a threat or even worse, that they did it on purpose.
Edit: I deleted my original comment because it was awkwardly and hastily written and did not reflect accurately what I meant to express.