Recently Yahoo News on-line reported the following:
China Says Europe’s Soaring Trade Deficit Is Its Own
Fault
Bloomberg News
Tue, August 8, 2023 at 6:09 a.m. PDT
(Bloomberg) -- China has rejected recent comments from the
European Union’s top trade official criticizing its economic practices, with Beijing
arguing that the soaring bilateral trade deficit is the fault of the bloc’s own
export controls.
“The EU restrictions on export of high-tech products to
China in recent years directly limited the EU’s ability to tap the potential of
export to China and led to unbalanced trade,” the Chinese Ministry of Foreign
Affairs said in a statement Tuesday. The surplus “is a natural result under the
combined influence of different industrial structures, industrial
specialization, ways of trade and external factors.”
In an interview with the Financial Times this week, the European Commission’s trade chief, Valdis Dombrovskis, said the deficit with China had reached a “staggering” level and that he would be pushing Beijing to reduce barriers to European goods when he traveled there in September. “The level of openness from the Chinese side is not the same as the level of openness from the EU side.”
The EU had planned to sign an investment accord with China that would seek to level the playing field for European firms in the world’s second-largest economy. But that deal was frozen in 2021 after the two sides imposed sanctions on each other due to accusations of human rights abuses in the Xinjiang region in China.
Since then, European firms in China have become increasingly pessimistic, with a record 64% saying in a June survey that it had become more challenging to do business in the country.
The EU is mulling new curbs on outbound investments for strategic rivals such as China in sensitive sectors like semiconductors that could enable Beijing to build a world-class chip industry. Earlier this year, the Dutch government said it would prohibit Europe’s most valuable technology company, ASML Holding NV, from shipping some of its machines to China.
China’s trade surplus with Europe soared during the pandemic as Europeans bought more goods such as personal protective equipment or electronics to allow working from home. From 2020 to 2022 the surplus more than doubled, hitting $277 billion last year. That has since narrowed somewhat as European demand has cooled, with the surplus falling to $19 billion last month, according to Chinese data released Tuesday.
The Chinese statement did not detail which specific restrictions it blamed for undercutting European exports, but during the trade war with the US, China also said that it would import more from the US if Washington would drop restrictions on the export of high-technology goods.
Translation
（彭博社）- 中國拒絕了歐盟最高貿易官員最近批評其經濟做法的言論，北京方面辯稱，雙邊貿易逆差飆升是歐盟自身出口管制的錯。
中國外交部周二在一份聲明中表示： “近年來歐盟對中國高科技產品出口的限制，直接限制了歐盟接上對華出口潛力的能力，導致貿易不平衡” 。順差 “是不同產業的結構、產業專業化、貿易方式和外部因素綜合影響下的自然結果” 。
歐盟委員會貿易主管Valdis Dombrovskis 本週在接受英國《金融時報》採訪時表示，對華貿易逆差已達到 “驚人”水平”，他將在9 月份訪問中國時敦促北京減少對歐洲商品的壁壘。 “中方的開放程度與歐盟的開放程度不一樣。”
歐盟原計劃與中國簽署一項投資協議，尋求為歐洲企業在世界第二大經濟體得到公平的競爭環境。 但在因指控中國新疆地區侵犯人權而相方相互實施制裁後，該協議於 2021 年被凍結。
此後，在華歐洲企業變得越來越悲觀，6 月份的一項調查顯示，創紀錄的 64% 企業表示在中國開展業務變得更具挑戰性。
歐盟正在考慮對中國等戰略競爭對手在半導體等敏感行業的對外投資實施新的限制，這投資可能使北京能夠建立世界級的芯片產業。 今年早些時候，荷蘭政府表示將禁止歐洲最有價值的科技公司 ASML Holding NV 將部分機器運送到中國。
疫情期間，隨著歐洲人購買更多個人防護設備或電子產品等商品以方便在家工作，中國對歐洲的貿易順差飆升。 從 2020 年到 2022 年，盈餘增加了一倍多，去年達到
2,770 億美元。 根據中國周二公佈的數據，隨著歐洲需求降溫，這一數字有所收窄，上個月盈餘降至
190 億美元。
Dombrovskis的聲明呼應了法國財政部長Bruno Le Maire的言論，後者最近在北京表示，法國正在尋求 “更好、更平衡地進入中國市場” 。 美國前總統唐特朗普也對對華貿易逆差提出了嚴厲批評，2020
年
1 月簽署的貿易協議在一定程度上是為了解決這種不平衡問題。
中國的聲明沒有詳細說明哪些具體限制削弱了歐洲的出口，但在與美國的貿易戰期間，中國還表示，如果華盛頓取消對高科技產品出口的限制，中國將從美國進口更多產品。
So, China’s trade surplus with
Europe soared during the pandemic. From 2020 to 2022 the surplus more than
doubled, hitting $277 billion last year. I think the reason for the trade
imbalance has been identified by European Commission’s trade chief, Valdis
Dombrovskis who notes that “The level of
openness from the Chinese side is not the same as the level of openness from
the EU side.”
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