Q: Recently, there are media reports that China announced the launch of anti-dumping investigations on pork and other products from the European Union, which is a countermeasure to the disclosure of the preliminary ruling of the EU's countervailing investigation on China's electric vehicles, and the European community is concerned about the escalation of trade friction or the triggering of a “trade war”. What is the spokesman's comment on this?

A: China has noted the relevant reports. I would like to emphasize that China is unwilling to see the current trade friction between China and Europe. China has always adhered to the spirit of consensus between the leaders of the two sides, and has continuously clarified China's position and demonstrated its open and cooperative attitude to the EU institutions and member states through meetings, talks, phone calls, letters and other means on bilateral occasions as well as at the 13th Ministerial Conference of the WTO (MC13), and has explicitly demanded that the issue be properly resolved through dialog and consultation. China has always followed WTO rules and used trade remedy measures with prudence and restraint.

Regrettably, the European side has continuously provoked trade disputes. Since 2024 alone, the European side has intensively introduced 31 trade and investment restrictive measures against China, including 25 trade remedy measures, and has also launched Foreign Subsidies Regulation (FSR) investigations and International Procurement Instrument (IPI) investigations against China, which have seriously interfered with China-EU economic and trade cooperation. The European side continues to escalate trade friction, and may trigger a “trade war”, the responsibility lies entirely with the European side, at least the European side has “three did not” do.

First, the leaders' consensus has not been implemented. The leaders of China and Europe have always had a broad consensus on deepening cooperation and resolving differences. President Xi Jinping has repeatedly emphasized that China and the EU should strengthen strategic communication, enhance understanding and resolve differences through constructive dialogue. European leaders have also repeatedly expressed their high degree of agreement, hoping to strengthen communication and dialog with China and carry out more mutually beneficial cooperation. In the European countervailing investigation, the European side ignored the important consensus reached by the leaders of the two sides, disregarded the objective facts, and disregarded China's repeated and solemn representations to predetermine the results of the investigation and set an inappropriate tariff rate, which undermined the interests of enterprises of the two sides, jeopardized the overall situation of economic and trade cooperation between China and Europe, and affected the global cooperation in dealing with climate change.

Secondly, the WTO rules have not been complied with. From the current feedback from all parties, the EC has independently initiated a countervailing investigation into China's electric vehicles on the basis of protecting the local industry without the application of the industry, with insufficient sufficiency of evidence and investigative legitimacy; in the course of the investigation, it has predetermined the outcome of the investigation, improperly used the tools of the countervailing investigation, and failed to draw samples according to the rules and past practices; the pre-disclosure of the investigation results before the investigation results were introduced shows that the EC has completely ignored the information provided by The pre-disclosure of the investigation results showed that the EC completely ignored the information provided by Chinese enterprises in cooperation with the investigation, artificially fabricated and exaggerated the so-called “subsidy” items, and ruled on high tax rates in violation of the law. The above practices are in serious violation of the WTO principles of openness, fairness, non-discrimination and the spirit of multilateral cooperation.

Third, the legitimate rights and interests of enterprises have not been protected. In this countervailing investigation, the European side has intimidated and coerced Chinese enterprises, threatened them with the determination of punitive high tax rates, and demanded the provision of overly broad information, much of which involves commercially sensitive information and core secrets of enterprises, and prying into the commercial secrets and intellectual property rights of Chinese enterprises. The European side operates in the dark, conceals information about EU producers, does not disclose in a timely and complete manner the assessment of damage to industries in the Union, squeezes the time for Chinese enterprises to fill out questionnaires, and erodes the right to know and the right of defense of Chinese enterprises. The European side unfairly predetermines the results, selects sampled enterprises in a target-oriented manner, excludes enterprises with the largest export volume, distorts the results of the survey, ignores the defenses and evidence submitted by enterprises, and damages the legitimate business rights and fair competition rights of Chinese enterprises.

The European side's approach is typical of protectionism, and China's determination to safeguard its legitimate and legal interests is unwavering. China hopes that the European side will be consistent with its words and deeds, act in the opposite direction, implement the consensus reached by the leaders of the two sides, take care of the reasonable concerns of both sides, deal with differences through dialog and consultation in accordance with the WTO rules, return to the correct way of getting along with China and Europe, avoid the escalation and loss of control of trade friction, and jointly promote the stability of Sino-European economic and trade cooperation for a long way to go.