The relationship between China and a number of European countries and transnational organizations has witnessed a number of remarkable developments in recent months, once again testifying to the complex and contradictory nature of these relations.

But this does not mean that the voices of individual countries on the continent cannot be not heard in the political white noise that Europe generates in the foreign policy arena. On the contrary, they are quite distinguishable, and increasingly, each country’s voice is highly individual. This is especially evident in Europe’s evolving political course in relation to the number two world power. Beijing therefore is having to analyze the signals coming from Brussels as well as from individual European capitals.

The issues of tariff increases on PRC exports and the “green shift”

Nevertheless, it is the EU bodies that are the main source of almost all the negative trends in Sino-European relations. It is them that Beijing is pointing at when it accuses Europe of “blindly following Washington’s lead” in its global-anti-China policy course. By this we mean primarily (there are other instances, as we shall see below) the introduction in September of this year by Brussels of new tariff regulations, which will now be imposed on certain imported goods.

Mostly these are products used in the so-called “green shift”, including electric cars, solar panels etc. As part of this trend, China has developed gigantic production capacities in anticipation of no less gigantic revenues from the sale of these goods in what appears to be the most promising (i.e. the richest) markets. Which are primarily the United States and Europe. All of a sudden, barriers to the import of the “green” goods par excellence from the PRC have been erected in all those markets.

Very much like an ambush. Moreover, this feeling is reinforced by the strangeness, to put it mildly, of the concept of the “green shift”. It is based on a completely speculative (i.e., not supported by any evidence) postulate about the impact of certain aspects of human activity on the now genuinely alarming climate crisis.

The role of the “greenhouse” effect, caused by the increasing levels of certain gases in the upper atmosphere, was first discussed in the late 1990s. Then it was seen as necessary to rein in the German chemical........

© New Eastern Outlook