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Beijing launched an anti-dumping investigation into EU pork imports, escalating trade tensions less than a week after Brussels said it would impose tariffs on electric vehicle supplies from China.
China’s Ministry of Commerce said the investigation – which the European agriculture industry says will hit farmers in Spain, the Netherlands, Denmark, Germany and Belgium the most – will focus on EU pork imports in 2023 and last up to a year, although it could be extended in six months.
“In recent years, the European Union has been dumping large amounts of cheap pork and pig by-products into China, impacting . . . China’s pork and pork by-product industry, as well as the related agricultural sector and farmers,” the China Animal Agriculture Association said in its request to the ministry for an investigation.
The announcement follows Brussels telling automakers on Wednesday that it will raise tariffs on some manufacturers by up to nearly 50 percent as part of an anti-subsidy investigation into Chinese electric cars.
By launching an anti-dumping probe into pork, which follows earlier action on brandy, Beijing hopes to put pressure on individual European governments to force the European Commission to scrap tariffs on electric cars before they are confirmed by July 4.
Member states will also get to vote on the tariffs, probably in late October. The tariffs could be blocked if 15 states vote against them.
Berlin has already said it opposes tariffs on electric cars. Spain was vague, while France strongly supported them.
“It’s a politically engineered retaliation.” The EU pork sector is very fragile and China is [the] a dominant exporting country,” said Fredrik Erixon, director of the Brussels-based European Center for International Political Economy.
“It also affects France and the Netherlands, the former at a politically sensitive time, which China is aware of,” he said, referring to the French election.
The European Commission said it was analyzing the case and would “intervene as necessary”.
The EU has been hit by farmers’ protests in the past year. Food producers, complaining of limited income and environmental protection requirements, have blocked roads and looted trucks to destroy imported products. Brussels eased regulation to appease protesters.
The EU has launched its own anti-dumping investigations into a number of Chinese imports in recent weeks, most recently on Monday into decorative paper used to cover furniture and floors.
Data from the China Animal Breeding Association attached to the ministry’s announcement showed that EU exports fell from 3.2 million tonnes in 2020 to 1.34 million tonnes in 2023. European pork’s market share in China also fell from 5 .52 percent in 2020 to 1.76 percent last year.
Patrick Pagani, deputy director general of Copa Cogeca, the EU’s agricultural industry body, said it was “not acceptable” for farmers to find themselves “in the crossfire of trade disputes involving other sectors”.
“There are no actual anti-dumping practices that can be attributed to our pork industry in Europe, but we have no choice now but to participate in this investigation, which is a costly process and will most likely result in a loss in any case. market in China.”
Belgium sent its first shipment of pork products to China since 2018 in February after Beijing lifted an embargo on Belgian pork due to an outbreak of African swine fever. Pig producers in the EU earned 2.5 billion euros in 2023.
The trade war with the EU comes at a time when China’s economy is experiencing a mixed recovery. China’s industrial production rose 5.6 percent year-on-year in May, data from the National Bureau of Statistics showed on Monday, missing analysts’ forecast of 6 percent in a Reuters poll and April’s 6.7 percent growth rate.
More news from William Sandlund in Hong Kong