BEIJING: China has never deliberately sought a surplus in trade with the European Union and if the EU truly wants to address this matter, it needs to lift export control against Beijing, rather blaming China, a Foreign Ministry spokesperson said on Tuesday.
It is reported that the EU will press China to reduce barriers to European exports at a high-level meeting in September.
Valdis Dombrovskis, the European Commission Executive Vice-President and Trade Commissioner, said in a recent interview that the EU-China trade ties are very unbalanced. Beijing is running a huge trade surplus, and the level of openness from its side is not the same as the level of openness from the European Union, Xinhua reported.
Result of China’s trade surplus
The spokesperson said that Beijing’s trade surplus with the European Union is a natural result of the combined influence of various industrial structures, industrial specialization, means of trade, and external factors.
He said that for years, the majority of EU firms in China have benefited heavily from EU-China trade, and this is the main reason why they were operating and have expanded business in China.
The EU bans on the export of high-tech items to China in recent years have limited the bloc’s ability to exploit the potential of export to China and resulted in an unbalanced trade between the two sides.
He added that if the bloc truly wants to address this matter, it should lift export control against Beijing.
