'Overcapacity' rhetoric serves as disguise for US attempt to curb China's new energy industry: spokesman

The U.S. "overcapacity" rhetoric serves as disguise for its attempt to curb China's high-quality development and progress in sci-tech industry, said Lin Jian, a spokesman of the Chinese Foreign Ministry, on Tuesday, in response to U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken's so-called concerns over China's industrial capacity.

At a regular press briefing in Beijing, Lin questioned Blinken's motive by labeling China with 'overcapacity' and pointed out U.S.'s anxiety stemming from lack of confidence.

"All countries produce and export products of their comparative advantage and this is the nature of international trade. If a country should be accused of overcapacity and asked to cut capacity whenever it produces more than its domestic demand, then what would countries trade with? If exporting 12 percent of Chinese-made EVs is called overcapacity, then what about Germany, Japan and the U.S. who export 80, 50 and 25 percent respectively of their automobiles? Wouldn't that be considered more serious overcapacity? Let's not forget that according to the statistics of the International Energy Agency, to realize carbon neutrality, the world will need 45 million NEVs by 2030, 4.5 times that of the demand of 2022. When the global capacity is still far below the market demand, how could there be 'overcapacity'?" Lin questioned.

"The U.S. knows fully well that this 'overcapacity' allegation is against economic common sense and industry facts, yet still labels China with it. The U.S. notion of 'China overcapacity' is not a market-driven conclusion, but a crafted narrative to manipulate perception and politicize trade. The real purpose is to hold back China's high-quality development and deprive China of its legitimate right to development. There isn't a 'China overcapacity', but a U.S. overcapacity of anxiety stemming from lack of confidence and smears against China," he said.

The spokesman urged the U.S. to honor its commitments and to stop deliberately targeting China's new energy industry.

"The U.S. said it does not seek to contain China's economy or bar China's progress in science and technology. We urge the U.S. to honor those words, and stop spreading the false 'overcapacity' narrative, stop going after China's new energy sector with unfair and non-market means, and stop impeding the global effort to achieve green transition and development," he said.

'Overcapacity' rhetoric serves as disguise for US attempt to curb China's new energy industry: spokesman

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠China's service outsourcing industry saw robust expansion in the first four months of this year, the Ministry of Commerce said on Tuesday.

Chinese firms inked services outsourcing contracts worth a total of some 781.43 billion yuan (about 110 billion U.S. dollars) in the four-month period, up 14.4 percent year on year, according to the ministry.

The executed contract value stood at 520.51 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 12.9 percent.

Of the total, the value of offshore service outsourcing contracts rose 8.6 percent year on year to 419.04 billion yuan.

Specifically, the value of offshore information technology outsourcing (ITO) services provided by Chinese companies jumped by 10.9 percent from a year earlier.

China's Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, the United States and the European Union ranked the top three markets in terms of the fulfilled contract value of offshore outsourcing service, accounting for 54 percent of the total.

Chinese firms undertook nearly 80 billion yuan(about 14.93 billion U.S. dollars) worth of offshore service outsourcing contracts that were fulfilled with countries participating in the Belt and Road Initiative, up 24 percent from a year ago, while the offshore outsourcing services for Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) member countries totaled 73.26 billion yuan, up 16.6 percent year on year.

Outsourcing refers to hiring an outside party to carry out services or produce goods typically undertaken by in-house employees. In China, service outsourcing is typically divided into three sectors: information technology outsourcing, business process outsourcing and knowledge process outsourcing.

In the January-April period, the service outsourcing industry welcomed about 301,000 new hires, with 84.7 percent of these individuals holding a bachelor's degree or above. The sector had over 16.17 million employees at the end of April, among whom some 10.56 million were graduates with a bachelor's degree or higher.

China's service outsourcing industry reports robust expansion