EU pleads for Chinese openness

EU trade commissioner Peter Mandelson will call on China to open its doors to European goods or face the threat of rising protectionism.

Speaking at an EU-China trade conference in Brussels on Friday, Mandelson will urge Beijing to clamp down on infringements of European intellectual property rights and remove the barriers to EU companies wanting to establish in China.

“China must move faster to meet its outstanding WTO commitments and better protect intellectual property rights or risk a backlash in Europe against its perceived power as a trader,” Mandelson says in an interview with The Parliament Magazine to be published on July 10.

The British commissioner still believes that a mutually beneficial trade agreement can be reached with China, despite a worsening of relations following a succession of anti-dumping decisions by Brussels on clothes and shoes.

And a move to impose further anti-dumping measures, this time on plastic bags, will do little to improve Mandelson’s standing with his Chinese counterparts. 

Mandelson remains defiant that the measures are necessary. “Using the anti-dumping tool is not protectionism, it is about ensuring that trade is competitive but fair,” he says.

“The multilateral trading system does have inbuilt safeguards to be used when countries are topping up their fair competitive advantage with unfair state intervention or trade distorting subsidies.”

But the Chinese are puzzled by the commissioner’s “inconsistent” approach.

“Mandelson can’t pursue a consistent trade policy. Last year he warned the EU against anti-dumping measures but now he has gone ahead with tariffs on shoes,” says Mei Xinyu, a Chinese economist, also speaking to The Parliament Magazine.

EU officials should spend more time getting to know China, and the way it works, before taking knee-jerk decisions on tariffs, he says.

“Why should we listen to EU officials who cannot even understand our language?”

Chinese textile makers argue that the tariffs are hurting China’s poorest citizens the most.

“China may be developing rapidly, but it is still a developing country. Most European people don’t know how poor villagers are. Working in textile factories are the jobs uneducated women can get,” Paul Zheng of the Beijing Guanghua Textile Group told the magazine.

But officials in Beijing echo Mandelson’s belief that an agreement can be reached.

“We hope that the EU will lift the duties, but if they don’t, we may be able to reach an agreement on lower tariffs that could satisfy both sides,” one Chinese official said.

“We don’t think [shoe tariffs] will hinder the relationship between the EU and China.”

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