China has abundant countermeasures against EC's tariff

China has "abundant" countermeasures against the European Commission's latest tariffs on imported Chinese electric vehicles, but is more willing to negotiate with the EU to "avoid a trade war", said a leading industry expert on Wednesday.

The comments came as the European Commission notified car makers on Wednesday that it would apply additional duties of up to 38.1 percent on imported Chinese electric vehicles from next month.

Sun Xiaohong, secretary-general of the automotive branch of the China Chamber of Commerce for Import and Export of Machinery and Electronic Products, said in an exclusive interview with China Daily that the EU's latest tariff move is "rare and unreasonable", and does not conform to WTO principles.

"China has abundant corresponding countermeasures, but the country is more willing to negotiate with the EU to avoid a trade war as much as possible," he emphasized.

Sun said that the European Commission's motive is not for trade development at all. For example, Tesla has been temporarily excluded from the temporary tariff and is pending for supplementary materials, which reflected how "targeted" the tariff is at China's electric vehicle industry, he said.

China Chamber of Commerce to the EU pointed out in their latest statement that the move was "politically motivated and protectionism-driven", as several Chinese enterprises and stakeholders have reported misuse of investigative power and misconduct by the European Commission during the investigation.

This includes exercising investigative power exceeding the scope of an anti-subsidy investigation, unreasonable document and information requests beyond the enterprises' capacity and burden of proof, and insufficient time given to these enterprises to collect requested data and information, it said.

Sun disclosed that as EU's investigation has never happened before globally, it is difficult for both the initiators and companies to complete quantitative analysis. "Many Chinese companies don't know how to respond and are worried about privacy leaks."

However, he pointed out that cooperation between EU and Chinese companies can bring huge benefits to the European automotive industry.

"Cooperation will only help Europe to accelerate their industrial transformation and upgrading. Many European companies, in fact, also hope to cooperate with the Chinese electric vehicle industry to achieve win-win results," he added.

chengyu@chinadaily.com.cn