A member of European Commission, left, prepares to exchange documents with Chinese delegation at a signing ceremony after the 5th China-EU High Level Economic and Trade dialogue at Diaoyutai State Guest House in Beijing, Sept. 28, 2015. AP-Yonhap
As trade tensions with China reach boiling point, EU officials are ramping up engagement with Beijing in search of an off-ramp.
Quietly behind the scenes, though, Europe is preparing for a trade war. In Brussels, a steely determination has set in to ensure the bloc’s manufacturing heartlands are not deindustrialised by the “China Shock 2.0.”
With some industries already haemorrhaging jobs, the EU’s resilience-building and de-risking plans are now laced with deterrents as Brussels looks to acquire leverage and credible retaliatory tools that would allow it to respond if China uses trade coercively.
Some analysts say the sides are already in a trade war, others think the two sides are still preparing for the inevitable storm — and some say that a trade war should be avoided at all costs.
