China Launches Tit-for-Tat Probe Into Dairy Imports From EU

The Chinese regime on Wednesday launched an anti-dumping investigation on dairy products imported from the European Union, marking the latest response to the EU’s tariff proposals and fueling trade tensions between Beijing and the 27-nation bloc.
Two state-backed industry groups, the Dairy Association of China and China Dairy Industry Association, formally submitted the request for an investigation into dairy products imported from the EU on July 29, the ministry said.
A total of 20 subsidy projects applied to various EU countries will be examined. Member states listed by the ministry are Austria, Belgium, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Finland, Italy, Ireland, and Romania.
In response, the European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, said it “took note” of China’s new probe.
“The Commission will firmly defend the interests of the EU dairy industry and the Common Agricultural Policy, and intervene as appropriate to ensure that the investigation fully complies with relevant [World Trade Organization] rules.”
The EU’s ongoing anti-subsidy investigation into China-made EVs is set to be completed in two months. The proposed tariffs could then become the EU’s definitive duties, which typically remain in effect for five years, if the majority of the bloc’s 27 member states support the plan in October’s vote.
Sun Kuo-hsiang, a professor of international relations at Nanhua University in Taiwan, interpreted Beijing’s new probe as an “attempt to exert pressure on the EU” amid Brussels’ ongoing anti-subsidy probe of China-made EVs.
The Chinese communist regime considers the EV industry a crucial strategic sector and offers substantial state subsidies and supportive policies to carmakers to bolster their growth, Sun told The Epoch Times.
“If the countervailing duties proposed by the EU are adopted, it could diminish China’s influence in the global EV market while exerting more political and economic strain on the Chinese government.”
“We mustn’t be naive and we have no interest to get into a trade war“ with China, but ”maybe it’s unavoidable,” Borrell told a seminar in Spain on Tuesday. “It’s also in the logic of things.”
“They [the United States] don’t ask us when they ban the import of Chinese cars. They’re not going to ask us where those Chinese cars are going if they’re not going to the United States,” Borrell said.
“I am sure they will go to the European market, and this is also generating a competitiveness issue with our industry.”