港媒：欧盟竖起保护主义高墙是闹剧

香港《南华早报》6月10日文章，原题：欧盟威胁对华发动贸易战是一场战略闹剧  欧盟委员会宣称与中国的贸易和投资关系“不可持续”，称贸易逆差和中国制造业产能过剩使欧洲数百万岗位面临风险。布鲁塞尔炮制这套说辞不过是在绝望中试图将贸易政策武器化，以掩盖自身造成的结构性失败。

布鲁塞尔为其保护主义辩护，主要理论武器是所谓的“中国产能过剩论”。而事实上，若论哪个经济体相对其人口体量产生了反常的过剩，非欧盟莫属。其经济结构高度依赖海外市场，并借此向外倾销其工业产出。当欧洲出口数十亿欧元的豪华汽车和机械设备时，被颂扬为比较优势的胜利；而当中国凭借无与伦比的基础设施生产出全球30%的商品时，欧洲政客却将其贴上“掠夺性威胁”标签。这完全是源于地缘政治嫉妒的双标保护主义。

欧洲曾自诩为全球绿色转型先锋。它将环保主义武器化，意图昭然若揭：将产业保护主义披上拯救地球的崇高外衣，从而通过价格壁垒将发展中国家挤出市场。但欧洲的决策者们失算了。中国产业在创新上投入巨大，在清洁能源产业链确立了无可争议的主导地位。于是，布鲁塞尔改换话术，论调从要求减排转向对所谓的“产能过剩”大肆叫嚣。这种急转弯暴露了其毫无商业操守可言。欧盟挑起这场贸易对抗，是基于一种错误认知，即自以为仍握有经济筹码。这是灾难性误判。

欧洲传统优势加速萎缩。无论在高铁、造船、特高压电网还是商用无人机领域，中国技术早已反超。现实是，欧洲经济对中国的需求远大于中国对欧洲的需求。若布鲁塞尔全面竖起保护主义高墙，经济反噬必将导致本土通胀飙升、工业运营成本剧增，令本就脆弱的中小企业面临破产危机。欧盟委员会导演的这场闹剧，拯救不了欧洲经济。若欧盟在保护主义的道路上越走越远，非但无法阻碍中国技术的自主迭代升级，最终只会作茧自缚，将自己与全球最具活力、最具创新力的供应链彻底隔绝。（作者Bi Jianlu，刘欣诚译）

本文原文为英文，由作者毕建录发表于香港《南华早报》，《环球时报》进行了编译摘发，译者刘欣诚。原文全文如下：

EU threat of trade war against China is a strategic farce

The EU is mistaken in believing it still has economic leverage. A trade war will not save an economy in decline.

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Jianlu Bi is a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy in Focus think tank at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, DC, and a research fellow at the Charhar Institute in Beijing. His research interests include international politics and communications. He holds a doctoral degree in communication studies and a master's degree in international studies.

The European Commission has declared its trade and economic relationship with China “unsustainable”, pointing to a daily trade deficit of €1 billion (US$1.16 billion) and Chinese manufacturing overcapacity that puts millions of jobs across various sectors at risk. However, a clear-eyed analysis reveals this premise to be entirely flawed. The narrative spun by Brussels is a desperate attempt to weaponise trade policy to mask structural, self-inflicted failures.

To understand the absurdity of the European Union’s stance, one must look at the velocity of its structural erosion. A standard benchmark for rapid geopolitical contraction is the fall of the Qing dynasty. One recent analysis yields a shocking revelation: the EU’s economic decay over the last two decades has been three times faster than that of the late Qing dynasty.

It took half a century of foreign invasions and internal stagnation for Qing China’s share of global gross domestic product to plummet from roughly 30 per cent to 17 per cent. The EU has managed the same in a fraction of that time, watching its share of global economic output implode after the 2008 financial crisis.

The primary intellectual weapon deployed by Brussels to justify its protectionism is the narrative of Chinese overcapacity. Yet, the numbers expose this claim as a myth.

The EU is home to roughly 450 million people, accounting for just 5.5 per cent of the global population, yet its manufacturing output commands about 16 per cent of the global total. China, with a population of 1.4 billion, represents 17 per cent of the global population and commands nearly 30 per cent of global manufacturing. In per capita terms, the EU’s contribution to global manufacturing output is much bigger than China’s.

If any economy is producing an unnatural surplus relative to its demographic footprint, it is the EU. It is structurally dependent on foreign markets, where it dumps its industrial output.

When Europe exports billions in luxury vehicles and machinery, it is heralded as a triumph of comparative advantage. But when China leverages its unparalleled infrastructure to manufacture 30 per cent of the world’s goods, European demagogues label it a predatory threat. This is double-standards protectionism born of geopolitical jealousy.

Years ago, Europe prided itself on being the vanguard of the global green transition. It weaponised environmentalism, establishing strict carbon-emission caps and the carbon border adjustment mechanism. The strategic intent was clear: wrap industrial protectionism in the noble flag of saving the planet, thereby pricing developing nations out of the market.

But Europe’s planners miscalculated in assuming China would remain a low-tier assembly line. Instead, Chinese industry invested heavily in innovation, achieving undisputed dominance across the entire clean-energy value chain – from solar photovoltaics to lithium-ion batteries and electric vehicles.

When Brussels realised its green trap had backfired, it flipped the script. Virtually overnight, the European narrative shifted from demanding carbon reductions to screaming about Chinese overcapacity. When European carmakers failed to build affordable, high-quality electric vehicles, protectionist walls were erected. This shift from a green trap to a capacity cap exposes a total lack of commercial integrity.

By initiating this trade confrontation, the EU operates under the mistaken belief that it still possesses economic leverage. This is a catastrophic misreading. Chinese supply chains have achieved comprehensive leaps, leaving European traditional advantages in rapid atrophy.

Whether in high-speed rail, shipbuilding, ultra-high-voltage power grids or commercial drone technology, Chinese engineering has moved beyond the point of parity. The hard truth is the European economy needs China more than China needs Europe. The continent is dependent on China’s integrated, cost-effective supply chains to keep its remaining industries afloat, and relies heavily on China’s consumer base to sustain its premier corporate brands.

Europe holds no monopolies over critical raw materials, no exclusive grip on next-generation artificial intelligence architectures and no control over the foundational components of the green economy. If Brussels triggers a full-scale trade war, the economic backlash will cause local inflation to spike, industrial operational costs to soar, and vulnerable small and medium-sized enterprises to face bankruptcy. Brussels is entering a high-stakes poker game with low cards, acting as if it holds a royal flush.

The ultimate tragedy of the EU’s posturing is that it lacks the foundational unity to wage a coherent economic campaign, remaining a loose coalition of 27 nations bound to different economic realities. While Germany relies heavily on Chinese automotive consumer markets and Hungary welcomes cleantech infrastructure, central and Eastern Europe depend on Belt and Road Initiative trade links – leaving only a hawkish fraction of Western bureaucrats pushing for trade wars under pressure from Washington.

This structural fragmentation offers a straightforward path to neutralisation: a targeted strategy of political and economic differentiation will easily dissolve the threat. By inflicting severe, localised economic pain on the small cadre of hostile nations while opening the doors of preferential trade and investment to pragmatic, cooperative European states, the artificial consensus manufactured by Brussels will disintegrate, leaving its single market paralysed by contradictions.

The impending trade war orchestrated by the European Commission will not save the European economy; it will merely stand as a monument to its accelerating irrelevance. If the EU continues along this path of protectionism, it will not hinder the self-sustaining iteration of Chinese technology. It will succeed only in walling itself off from the most vibrant, innovative supply chains on Earth, transforming a once-great economic continent into a stagnant, self-isolated museum of industrial history.

(Jianlu Bi is a senior fellow at Foreign Policy in Focus of Institute for Policy Studies and research fellow at the Charhar Institute. Published: 4:30pm, 10 Jun 2026Updated: 5:01pm, 10 Jun 2026)

作者毕建录为察哈尔学会研究员、美国政策研究所外交政策聚焦项目资深研究员。本文为作者个人观点，不代表我会观点或立场。