EU chief says will urge ‘fair’ China competition in talks with Xi May 6, 2024

China's President Xi Jinping and his wife Peng Liyuan wave before disembarking from the plane on their arrival for a two-day official visit, at Orly airport, south of Paris, on May 5, 2024. (Photo by STEPHANE DE SAKUTIN / POOL / AFP)

By AFP - Agence France Presse

EU chief says will urge ‘fair’ China competition in talks with Xi

Brussels, Belgium - European Union chief Ursula von der Leyen said Monday she will push for "fair" competition with China in talks with President Xi Jinping, who is in Paris on a state visit.

"We have to act to ensure that competition is fair and not distorted," she said in comments made hours before a face-to-face meeting in Paris between her, Xi and French President Emmanuel Macron.

She added that, earlier with Xi, "I made it clear that the current imbalances in market access are not sustainable and need to be addressed".

Von der Leyen's European Commission, the EU's trade authority, has opened a series of competition investigations against China in recent months.

Beijing reacted furiously to the latest investigation, into suspected unequal access to China's medical devices market, calling it a sign of "protectionism" by the EU.

China is also irritated by an EU investigation into Chinese suppliers of wind turbines to the European market. Other Brussels investigations have focused on Chinese subsidies for solar panels, electric vehicles (EVs), and trains.

Von der Leyen reiterated the EU's position that it "must reduce its relations but not disengage from China", which means reducing dependence on Chinese suppliers but not going as far as the United States by penalizing or blocking trade flows in important sectors.

"We have been very clear about our relationship with China, which is one of the most complex, but also one of the most important," said the president of the commission.

"In the last year, I met with President Xi twice and we spent some time discussing EU-China relations, from trade to climate, from global affairs to digital issues," she said.

Von der Leyen emphasized the problem of Chinese overcapacity and how this was leading to Chinese products entering the European Union at prices too low for EU companies to compete with.

"China is currently manufacturing, with massive subsidies, more than it sells due to its weak domestic demand. This is leading to an oversupply of subsidized Chinese products, such as electric vehicles and steel, which is leading to unfair trade," she said.

"Europe cannot accept these market-distorting practices that could lead to deindustrialization in Europe."

Von der Leyen said she would "encourage the Chinese government to deal with these overcapacities in the short term", adding that the EU will work with other rich and emerging economies that have been "increasingly affected by China's market distortions".

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