(Deutsche Welle Chinese website) "Süddeutsche Zeitung" commented that in order to prevent a trade war that may break out at any time, Germany and France suggest that the EU should prepare a powerful pressure tool to quickly and effectively respond to economic coercion from China and other countries. For example, when a relevant country threatens to ban the export of key raw materials, the EU has the right to ban some or even all companies in that country from entering the EU single market. Although Germany and France did not directly name names, the target of the attack was clearly China. This comment titled "The EU is no longer welcome" reads:
"For their own political and economic interests, China and some other countries will do anything they can, and it is against this background that Germany and France proposed the above-mentioned plan. For many years, Germany has opposed the EU's radical measures against China because it is worried that its exports of industrial products such as automobiles to China will be affected. But now, the German Chancellery has become increasingly aware that Beijing is increasingly using its economic power as a means of political pressure, and in order to prevent Germany's industrial base from being further hollowed out, Germany must fight back.
In addition, Berlin also realized that in the Sino-European trade conflict, the EU's situation is far better than imagined: indeed, the EU is highly dependent on imports of many raw materials from China, because China is one of the few or only producers. But on the other hand, affected by China's weak domestic demand and the Sino-US trade war, the EU has become an indispensable sales market for many Chinese companies. German Chancellor Mertz and French President Macron hope to make full use of this favorable position of the EU.
For some time, the EU's trade deficit with China has reached one billion euros per day and continues to expand. Today, no EU member state maintains a trade surplus with China. China dumps its heavily subsidized excess products into the international market at dumping prices. Under the "China Impact", none of Germany's industrial cores such as automobiles, machinery manufacturing and chemicals were spared. "
Comments from the "Süddeutsche Zeitung" pointed out that when talking about the new tools jointly proposed by Germany and France, federal government officials used the term "second strike weapons" derived from the Cold War nuclear deterrence strategy, which is enough to show the intensity of the international trade dispute. And this dispute is likely to come to a showdown this fall:
"This week, EU Trade Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič will hold talks with Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao in Beijing. Since June this year, China and the EU have been discussing how to eliminate the growing imbalance in bilateral trade relations, but so far they have been unable to achieve results.
Privately, there is a consensus within the European Commission that Sefcovic's trip to Beijing will also be in vain. In view of this, the majority of EU countries support further restrictions on trade with China. It is generally believed that Wang Wentao will not satisfy the EU's desire for China to voluntarily reduce exports to Europe in some industries.
While the EU is preparing to build new weapons, Germany and France also hope that the EU's existing policy tools can be further strengthened, such as anti-dumping measures and the establishment of import caps for single countries. "
The “nuclear option” lacks credibility
The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung believes that as long as the EU cannot get rid of its dependence on China in key raw materials such as rare earths, the "second strike weapons" proposed by Germany and France will not be able to produce a deterrent force:
"Although the EU already has anti-coercion tools, activating them has so far been difficult. Merz and Macron want to change this and give the European Commission the authority to launch new tools independently, while member states must have a majority if they want to block the launch of the tool.
However, the German and French proposals also clearly require the EU not to strike preemptively. Macron has been more aggressive on this issue before. Under the new proposals, the EU will have the power to respond in a controlled manner when it encounters economic attacks from China or the United States. Taking NATO's nuclear strategy as a model, the EU will be able to respond flexibly. First, there are partial restrictions on market access, and a complete ban on market access is the last option in the upgrade chain.
The expectation of Germany and France is that this new 'second strike weapon' will be enough to deter China so that they will not dare to escalate the situation further. Like nuclear deterrence, the original intention of setting up this weapon is to never activate this weapon. But the problem is that the deterrent effect of this EU weapon is really unconvincing. Because no matter how important the EU market is to China, China can afford to be excluded from the EU market. But if China cuts off Europeans’ access to rare earths, European production lines will stop operating within a few days. As long as the Europeans do not change this status quo, any reciprocal countermeasures will be nonsense. "
