The problem with what European politicians say

When Mercedes-Benz CEO Ola Kallenius called for the European Union to cut tariff on electric vehicles from China, arguing that it would force European companies to make better products, he was telling some plain truth that everybody should know.

“Don’t raise tariffs,” the Financial Times quoted him as saying. “I’m a contrarian, I think go the other way around: take the tariffs that we have and reduce them ... that is the market economy. Let competition play out.”

“Market economy” and “let competition play out” were among the main goals of emerging European capitalists in the 17th and 18th century, which led to the establishment of the capitalist system that persists until today. The European countries are not only major boosters but also main beneficiaries of economic globalization over the past decades. But some of the EU’s recent policies and practices related to “de-risking” are actually against the principle of free trade and economic globalization, and also harm the interests of the European countries by killing competition or separating European enterprises from the world market.

Ironically, lack of market competition is also what the West, both European nations and the United States, used to accuse China of years ago, even though that was unfair. In May 2016, the European Parliament passed a resolution saying that unless China fulfills the EU’s five criteria for market economy status, its exports to the EU must be treated in a nonstandard way.

It is surprising that the EU and US now disown what they once held to be a sacred principle. By doing so they are dampening their own ideology and economy. — ZHANG ZHOUXIANG, CHINA DAILY