Welcome back to What’s Happening in China, your weekly China brief.
“The European side should harbor no illusions about gaining benefits through pressure, and certainly should not underestimate China’s determination and ability to safeguard its own interests,” the Ministry of Commerce said on Friday.
After last week’s announcement of a new EU-China “shared understanding” on hybrid cars, market access, and rare earth exports, developments this week have already exposed the fragility of that understanding. To Beijing’s dissatisfaction, the European Union is now exploring ways to impose similar quotas on imports from China in other sectors while also preparing new tools to detect and respond quickly to import surges.
At the conclusion of a two-day meeting in Brussels, the European Council said that it “took stock of global macroeconomic imbalances, and invites the Commission to continue to engage in results-oriented dialogues, to make effective use of the EU’s instruments, and to urgently e…
