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Wang Huiyao
Opinion
Wang Huiyao

Anxious West seeks to rewrite global trade rules to counter China

Beijing should not be accused of trade unfairness simply because Chinese companies have become efficient, innovative and globally competitive

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Illustration: Craig Stephens
Wang Huiyao
Wang Huiyao is the founder of the Centre for China and Globalisation, a Beijing-based non-governmental think tank.
At the recent Brussels summit, the leaders of all 27 European Union states called on the European Commission to expand the bloc’s trade defence toolbox against “global macroeconomic imbalances”, widely understood to refer to China’s so-called overcapacity.
Measures under discussion include mechanisms for sector-wide tariffs and other restrictions in industries such as chemicals and green technology. Europe, long a critic of Washington’s Section 301 tariffs, is now considering instruments that increasingly resemble them.

For decades, the United States and Europe championed an open trading system built on multilateral rules, comparative advantage and global supply chains. They also urged China to open up its markets, lower tariffs, welcome foreign investment, strengthen intellectual property protection and integrate into the rules-based trading system.

Yet, as industrial competition intensifies, governments increasingly fear deindustrialisation, supply-chain vulnerabilities, technological dependence and the political consequences of economic dislocation. From Washington’s tariffs and industrial subsidies to Europe’s growing embrace of trade defence instruments, protectionism seems to be back in vogue.

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