China News Agency, Brussels, November 27th. Xia Xiang, Minister of Economic and Commercial Affairs of the Chinese Mission to the European Union, published a signed article on the EUobserver website (EUobserver) on the 26th, saying that he simply emphasized the EU’s dependence on China’s supply chain and ignored China-EU The “positive dependence” between China and the EU is neither in line with the facts nor in the interests of China and the EU.

  The article stated that due to the impact of the new crown epidemic on the global supply chain, some European companies cannot obtain much-needed Chinese raw material supplies.

For this reason, some Europeans have proposed that the supply chain and industrial chain of key industries such as medicine should be moved back to the homeland or neighboring regions to reduce dependence on China's supply chain and market.

  This article pointed out that the formation of today's global industrial layout is a concentrated expression of objective economic laws, and the status quo of the industrial pattern in China and Europe is more a result of the optimal allocation of global resources by capital based on market rules.

Ignoring the laws of the market, rash attempts to move the industrial chain back from China will greatly increase the production costs of European products, weaken the global competitiveness of European companies, and ultimately damage Europe itself.

  For example, the president of the French auto parts giant Valeo Group once said that if the auto industry chain is moved from China back to Europe, downstream assembly plants may not be willing to bear higher prices, and the global auto supply chain is already quite resilient. Far from being as fragile as imagined.

  The article also pointed out that if we want to talk about dependence, China is also quite "dependent" on the EU supply chain in many industries.

For example, a large proportion of the core components of key equipment such as ventilators used by China to fight the new crown epidemic are imported from Europe. According to EU statistics, in 2019, in the two fields of vehicles and parts, aircraft and accessories, China imported The total amount of EU products accounted for more than half of China's total global imports of similar products.

  In addition, the Chinese industrial chain and the Chinese market have created huge benefits and new growth points for European companies.

For example, in the European core industry automotive industry, the Chinese market accounted for 28.6% of the BMW Group’s 2019 new car sales and contributed nearly one-third of BMW’s net profit.

This year, in the context of the impact of the new crown epidemic, the Chinese market has become the only growth point for the European automotive industry.

  The article emphasizes that the industrial interests of China and the EU are intertwined and highly integrated, indicating that China and the EU are essentially "positively dependent", reflecting the respective best interests of both parties under the current globalization background; simply emphasizing the EU’s dependence on China’s supply chain. Ignoring the "positive interdependence" between China and Europe is neither in line with the facts, but also against the interests of both sides. It is unwise to try to divorce European companies from the Chinese industrial chain and the Chinese market.

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