NationStates Jolt Archive

For a number of days, several tons of China´s imports were held in European customs, not allowed to enter the EU. These imports consisted mostly of clothes and garments. Many european textile manufacturers have complained that their Chinese counterparts can produce quality-inferior products with much lower costs due to to the lack of social security protection and Third-world salaries in that country. The european producers further claim that this equals social dumping and amounts to unfair competition; they fear that if Chinese produce continues to flood the european market, many textile plants in the EU will have no choice than to engage in massive lay-offs. On the other side, the Chinese governement assures that its striving to keep the countries´s textile exports under severe check; many shopowners in Europe have also been in uproar saying that they desperatly need the Chinese imports held in customs. Apparently the European Comission has allowed these Chines imports to enter the EU very recently, but the issue remains: shoud the EU adopt a protecionist policy and ban Chinese imports or does that contend with the most basic tenements of free trade and should never be an option?

Oh I wouldn't be surprised. The EU practices protectionism against the poor, starving farmers of Africa. What difference would it make if China was also one of those victims. It is the European consumers that will suffer.

Shouldn't it be China's exports?

Shouldn't it be China's exports?
well, i was thinking that the true term woul be imports, since the question is being asked from the european point of view..."chinese imports" as in chinese goods entering the Eu...

well, i was thinking that the true term woul be imports, since the question is being asked from the european point of view..."chinese imports" as in chinese goods entering the Eu...
Then, grammatically, you do mean "Chinese imports" instead of "China's imports".

I think it would be a good idea, at least while Eastern europe develops. Utilise protectionism, build up the east(using wealth from the west, which gets invested right back east), and when the eastern markets are no longer worth using as cheap markets, stop using protectionism, and move to other nations.

No. You can't ban cheap stuff, put up taxes without putting up wages AND expect us to pay for expensive stuff. It doesn't work like that.

Then, grammatically, you do mean "Chinese imports" instead of "China's imports".
Quite right, i stand corrected (damn to hell my not being born in a english-speaking country!!!)

But dont you think that many european jobs will be put into risk due to Chinese textile imports?

But dont you think that many european jobs will be put into risk due to Chinese textile imports?

Sure they will. It's what happens in a global market. European workers should have thought of that before they priced themselves out of the market with their consistent striking.

Sure they will. It's what happens in a global market. European workers should have thought of that before they priced themselves out of the market with their consistent striking.
But even if they had been more management- friendly, would they have been able to compete with a textile industry that pays its workers a tiny fraction of the former´s?

3 letters, W. T. O.

the EU removed all tariffs and control in line with their WTO commitments at the beginning of the year. Then everyone in France, Portugal and Greece textile industry started crying about the fact retailers where now placing orders with China instaead of them. In a bit of panic, the EU reintroduced tariffs, only to find that the retialers orders where of course already in transit and held up at customs (for weeks not days).

So really the question is do you believe in genuine world wide free trade, or the maintaining of trade controls per country/trading bloc. Remember it cuts both ways, for all those cheap cloths coming into the EU with no tariffs, engineering good go the other way (not necessarily from the same member states of course). If you revert to trading limits/tariffs you protect you own domestic market, but may cut off foreign ones.

3 letters, W. T. O.

the EU removed all tariffs and control in line with their WTO commitments at the beginning of the year. Then everyone in France, Portugal and Greece textile industry started crying about the fact retailers where now placing orders with China instaead of them. In a bit of panic, the EU reintroduced tariffs, only to find that the retialers orders where of course already in transit and held up at customs (for weeks not days).

So really the question is do you believe in genuine world wide free trade, or the maintaining of trade controls per country/trading bloc. Remember it cuts both ways, for all those cheap cloths coming into the EU with no tariffs, engineering good go the other way (not necessarily from the same member states of course). If you revert to trading limits/tariffs you protect you own domestic market, but may cut off foreign ones.
Some claim that the emerging chinese middle-class will continue buying european luxury goods no matter what-i.e. even if chinese exports are trumped by europe. But i´ll concede the point that in my own country (portugal) the manufacturers have had years of fat EU grants to make the industry more competitive, and instead they wasted it in Ferraris and houses with pools.