One billion euros a day, 360 billion a year: this is the scale of the European trade deficit vis-à-vis China. This is colossal, and unsustainable, especially when it is entire swathes of European industry that are threatened by the formidable Chinese industrial production machine.
European Trade Commissioner Maros Sefcovic is in Beijing today and tomorrow for discussions that are going to be very difficult. Sefcovic speaks on behalf of the 27 because trade is a European prerogative. It has a dual objective: to reduce this deficit at all costs, by avoiding a trade war in which Europe is not necessarily the best prepared.
On the eve of this crucial deadline, France and Germany have finally granted their positions
On Monday, a joint letter signed by Emmanuel Macron and Friedrich Merz ended months of differences, Germany, much more present than France on the Chinese market, being more reluctant to harden the tone. This is done because Chinese industry is destroying entire swathes of the German economy.
Language is muscular: the common letter speaks of an “instrumentalization of trade used as a weapon”, and “systematic distortion of the market”. China is not specifically quoted, but it is it, of course, that is targeted. Macron and Merz are calling on the Commission to consider new instruments in the European trade “toolbox” to curb the entry of Chinese products.
The letter was published, it is no coincidence, on the eve of the visit to Beijing of European Commissioner Sefcovic, to convey the message to the Chinese leaders that they cannot ignore the change of mood in Europe. He will plead for China to adopt measures of restrictions on some of its exports, for example on hybrid vehicles: a net refusal is already announced.
A sign of the change of tone, former European Commissioner Pascal Lamy, who had negotiated with China his entry into the World Trade Organization in 2001, has multiplied interviews to say how wrong we have been about China, “a historical mistake” he even says in “Le Monde”. It also offers new commercial instruments.
However, China is in a position of strength, its industrial superiority is unquestionable. The American researcher Dan Wang says in a recent bookOpening in a new tab (“China at full speed”, ed. arpa) that Chinese industrial dominance is in place for a generation.
But it also needs outlets for its productions, and Europe and its 450 million consumers cannot be ignored. But a trade war would be a perilous outcome for Europe, which is more dependent on China than the other way around. Beijing showed last year, with the rare earths embargo, that it could bend Donald Trump and his prohibitive tariffs.
Already confronted with the hostility of the Trump administration on the one hand, the aggressiveness of Vladimir Putin on the other, Europe has, with China, a formidable opponent on another ground, that of its economic survival. For this reason, the 27 have every interest in strengthening their cohesion and not only on the defensive level. The Franco-German letter shows that European leaders are aware of this.
Radio France
Pierre Haski, France Inter, France
