China's export remains strong despite EU's EV tariff: EU Chamber president

China

China's export remains strong despite EU's EV tariff: EU Chamber president

2024-12-07 19:49 Last Updated At：22:57

China's export remains strong despite challenges such as the European Union's electric vehicle (EV) tariffs and broader global economic pressures, according to the head of the European Union (EU) Chamber of Commerce in China.

Jens Eskelund, president of the EU Chamber of Commerce in China, shared his insights towards China's foreign trade in an interview with the China Global Television Network (CGTN), highlighting that the disruption of the current hotspot of EU's EV tariffs on China is not significant in the context of the country's overall foreign trade.

"Last year, EVs accounted for 1.8 percent of European import from China. And that's what to me is a little bit surprising. We spent so much energy talking about 1.8 percent where maybe we should look a little bit more of the 98.2 percent, where actually Chinese exports are doing very fine," said Eskelund.

In addition to Europe, China's export is gaining momentum in most of the regions with its large economic volume and great vitality.

"If you look at the first half of the year, Chinese exports to Europe in volume terms, the number of containers shipped, actually grew by 10 to 11 percent or so. With the exception of North America, we're actually seeing China taking markets share in all other markets in terms of its export. So, China is doing fantastically well," said Eskelund.

Looking to the future, Eskelund holds high expectations for China's export growth despite the threat of high tariffs and protectionism.

"Now, our expectation is that global growth in container volumes will grow around maybe 7 percent this year. And 6 percent of these 7 percent is due to growth out of China. So, growing 6-7 percent is twice as fast as global economic growth. I mean deglobalization, on-shoring, friend-shoring, near-shoring, we don't really see it in the figures. Maybe we see a fragmentation and we see sort of every grouping of trade patterns, but really, in this particular year 2024, we have seen a quite strong trade performance," said Eskelund.

Japanese lawmaker criticizes nuclear weapons remarks as threat to regional security

A Japanese lawmaker has raised concerns over Japan's push to expand its military and its nuclear policy.

Responding to some politicians' dangerous tendency towards possessing nuclear weapons, Takara Sachika, a member of Japan's House of Councilors, said that Japan's push to strengthen its military, combined with what she called a misguided nuclear policy, not only heightens regional tensions but also directly threatens regional security.

"I think this is completely unacceptable. Japan is a country that has suffered atomic bombings and is one of the nations most aware of the threat posed by nuclear weapons. Yet such a country is openly discussing the issue of possessing nuclear weapons and even attempting to revise the principle of not allowing the introduction of nuclear weapons, one of the Three Non-Nuclear Principles. This is an extremely serious problem," Takara said.

Takara said the Japanese government's tendency to expand its military capabilities is completely contrary to the Constitution.

"From the perspective of Japan's Constitution, Japan should never have adopted a policy of ensuring security by strengthening military capabilities. Yet today, enormous effort is being poured into military expansion, and that in itself is a serious problem," said the lawmaker.

At a Diet meeting in early November 2025, Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said that what she described as the Chinese central authorities' "use of force on Taiwan" could constitute a "survival-threatening situation" for Japan, and suggested the possibility of armed intervention in the Taiwan Strait, drawing strong criticism worldwide.

Takara urged Takaichi to retract her erroneous remarks as soon as possible.

"I think there is a very big problem with making such remarks that provoke other countries. It is necessary to thoroughly examine the facts as soon as possible and withdraw the relevant remarks," she said.