Chinese firms can often undercut their Western counterparts for many reasons, including cheaper labor and economies of scale. But they also benefit from very generous state incentives, which help to make foreign rivals uncompetitive.
European Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager described China’s playbook for dominating green-energy sectors during a speech at Princeton University this week. Noting how China first attracts foreign investment through joint ventures, she said the country was “not always above board” in the way it acquired green technological know-how. China then closed its own market to foreign firms before exporting excess capacity to the rest of the world at low, subsidized prices, she says.
“We should prepared to play hardball with China,” says Rolf Langhammer, former vice president of the Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW-Kiel)… “For electric cars and green technology, the US and EU are the most important foreign markets, and the Chinese need access.”
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United States Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned China last weekend against overproducing clean-energy products such as solar panels, wind turbines and electric vehicles (EVs) in the race to slow climate change.
In addition to the huge subsidies, the report’s authors noted, Chinese producers also benefit from preferential access to critical raw materials, forced technological transfers and less domestic red tape than their foreign competitors.
“US and European nervousness is coming at a time when electric vehicle demand [in the West] has faltered a bit,” Brad W. Setser, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, told DW.
German automakers have a quarter of their foreign direct investment in China and also benefit from Chinese subsidies and they fear retaliation," Langhammer said, referring to possible tit-for-tat measures Beijing may levy in the event of higher EU tariffs.
Washington is concerned that Chinese firms will use loopholes in US trade deals with Mexico and Canada to circumvent higher import tariffs by producing Chinese-branded EVs in the two neighboring countries.
Though EU countries installed record levels of solar capacity last year — 40% more than in 2022 — the vast majority of panels and parts came from China, according to data from the International Energy Agency.
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I have already started hearing protectionistic proclaims about Chinese EVs in Europe. Sounds awkward when every single piece of technological hardware is made there and nobody has ever complained for decades. But when businessmen see their domain under threat they become aggressive.
I mean, we should pull all production out of China. There is no actual need for our goods to be made there and it comes with a long list of side-effects, including propping up a regime that is hell-bent on starting at least one major war in Asia.
There may be no actual need, but it’s surely been nice to outsource all the pollution, workers living in crates, bottom of the barrel wages, lack of work safety, suicide prevention nets, and similar.
Marx believed that wealth was generated by the labor of the working class, but the capitalist system perpetuated inequality and exploitation… basically capitalists are realizing capitalism didn’t work. Marx said it at least a century before.
@Dieguito @PoliticallyIncorrect
One can easily infer from your comments that you didn’t even click the link. It really helps to read an article before commenting.
Addition:
China’s central role in global production – it is the world’s largest exporter of goods is a cause for concern as exports from China are increasingly at risk of being tainted by state-imposed forced labour. Since 2018, evidence of forced labour of Uyghur and other Turkic and Muslim majority peoples has emerged in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (Uyghur Region). Forced labour imposed by private actors is also reported, in addition to forced marriage and organ trafficking, with vulnerability primarily driven by discriminatory government practices. While China demonstrated some efforts to tackle modern slavery through sustained coordination at the national and regional levels – including by adopting a new national action plan for 2021 to 2030 its overall response is critically undermined by the use of state-imposed forced labour.
Since 2018, evidence of forced labour […]
2010: Foxconn Installs Antijumping Nets at Hebei Plants
Forced labor in China was a feature, not a bug.
Denouncing it after knowingly benefitting for decades, is a bit disingenuous.
You don’t need to read the article to know the capitalist “solution” for the growth and exportation of Chinese products like EVs or something else consists into implementing higher punishment tariffs, just a way to keep the capitalist boat a float while they play in the intelligence field the real war.
The main question it’s if the massive propaganda social media system can effectively gaslight the population from realizing the failure of the capitalist economic system.
Edit: I think it depends in what it’s actually the definition of modern slavery cos if you ask me in the west capitalist systems there are 99% of the population into modern slavery.
in the west capitalist systems there are 99% of the population into modern slavery.
It would be helpful if you posted a source for that claim. Where did you get that?
For China, I have one regarding North Korean workers in Chinese seafood processing.
The workers, all of whom are women, described conditions of confinement and violence at the plants. Workers are held in compounds, sometimes behind barbed wire, under the watch of security agents. Many work gruelling shifts and get at most one day off a month. Several described being beaten by the managers sent by North Korea to watch them. “It was like prison for me,” one woman said. “At first, I almost vomited at how bad it was, and, just when I got used to it, the supervisors would tell us to shut up, and curse if we talked.”
Many described enduring sexual assault at the hands of their managers. “They would say I’m fuckable and then suddenly grab my body and grope my breasts and put their dirty mouth on mine and be disgusting,” a woman who did product transport at a plant in the city of Dalian said. Another, who worked at Jinhui, said, “The worst and saddest moment was when I was forced to have sexual relations when we were brought to a party with alcohol.” The workers described being kept at the factories against their will, and being threatened with severe punishment if they tried to escape. A woman who was at a factory called Dalian Haiqing Food for more than four years said, “It’s often emphasized that, if you are caught running away, you will be killed without a trace.”
You’d find a lot more.
Are you seriously trying to redefine slavery just to defend a murderous dictatorship?
As you don’t like reading, watch a documentary.
Forced Labour - SOS from a Chinese Prisoner
A desperate cry for help written in Chinese was discovered in a pregnancy test sold in France and made in a Chinese factory. It revealed a hidden world of Chinese prison-companies where prisoners are forced to work for 15 hour days manufacturing products for export. This documentary tries to find out who wrote the letter.
