EU eyes unified China approach

The EU is increasingly united on the need for a tough approach to China.

Europe has long been nervous about cheap, state-subsidized Chinese goods undermining the continent’s manufacturing industries.

Paris has led efforts to respond, calling for new tariffs and other measures, but Berlin has been more wary, since Chinese buyers supported much of Germany’s car industry. But the balance of risks has changed, with Chinese domestic demand falling and its exports expanding.

The bloc has no appetite for a full-scale trade war with Beijing, a European Council on Foreign Relations analyst argued, but it looks increasingly prepared to deploy an array of smaller measures: “Europe’s era of acquiescence is over.“

— Tom Chivers