China Threatens With Furious Retaliation In Growing Trade Wars

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Last week it was the Fairness Distributor In Chief threatening China with WTO action over its unfair duties on US car imports. Before that it was Europe trying to protect its crumbling trade at all costs with its primary trade partner. Now, it is China’s turn to retort to the world’s beggars, and all those who just happen to ravenously import its iWares with the reckless abandon of a gadget junkie.

FT reports: “Beijing has threatened swift retaliation against a range of European Union industries if Brussels presses ahead with an investigation into government subsidies granted to two Chinese telecoms equipment companies.

The Chinese threat was delivered at a meeting with EU trade officials in Beijing late last month that was arranged at the behest of Chen Deming, China’s commerce minister, to try to defuse a brewing trade dispute that is straining commercial relations between the two sides. Instead, it collapsed into acrimony, with the Chinese warning their EU visitors that they would respond to any investigation of Huawei and ZTE Corp by probing subsidies granted to European agriculture, automotive, renewable energy and telecoms companies. “Put it this way: it’s not like they went for a beer after and watched football,”one person briefed on the meeting said.” None of this is new: recall China Lays Out Conditions Under Which It Will Bail Out Europe; Does Not Want To Be Seen As“Source Of Dumb Money“ in which Li Daokui “added that Beijing might also ask European leaders to refrain from criticising China’s currency policy, a frequent source of tension with trade partners.” Looks like we can scrap those “China bails out Europe” (ignore the fact that the Chinese economy itself is imploding for a second) rumor in perpetuity.

FromFT:

Karel De Gucht, the EU trade commissioner, declined to comment. An EU official sought to play down the meeting, saying that Brussels would wait to see what level of co-operation the Chinese would provide in an effort to ward off a formal trade complaint.

Nonetheless, concerns about the Chinese reaction – and pressure from worried member states –appear to have put on ice a case that once seemed imminent, according to several EU diplomats. They said it was now unlikely that Mr De Gucht would act before September.

In the meantime, both sides are bracing for another trade confrontation in the solar industry. European solar companies have been preparing a complaint accusing Chinese competitors of using improper government subsidies to underprice them, and requesting punitive tariffs. That complaint could materialise as early as this week, according to people familiar with the matter, and could also trigger Chinese retribution.

Combating Chinese government subsidies has been one of Mr De Gucht’s top priorities. The cutting-edge telecoms equipment industry, in which Huawei and ZTE have quickly gained market share, would be a signature case.

Yet it is one thing for bureaucrat to sabre rattle, it is something totally different for idiotic trade war proposals to get traction with corporations:

Mr De Gucht’s case has been undermined by a lack of support from European telecoms companies – Ericsson, Siemens-Nokia, and Alcatel-Lucent – which fear that any action from Brussels could harm their own business interests in China’s fast-growing market.

In an effort to get around that, he has drawn up plans to launch the complaint at the commission’s initiative – and not based on a complaint from a company –setting a new precedent in EU trade defence.

Trade analysts in Brussels said that some member states had also expressed reservations about the case after receiving complaints from Beijing. Germany is understood to be wary of igniting a trade war with China before a planned visit by Chancellor Angela Merkel in August.

And now that China has told Europe what it can do with its empty threats, it is time for it to shift its attention to the US.

(infowars)

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