Illustration: Chen Xia/Global Times

The good news is that EU members blocked on Wednesday new rules requiring large companies to check if their supply chains use so-called forced labor or cause environmental damage, but it is not yet time to celebrate, as there are still many tough battles ahead.

The business community had criticized the rules, fearing they will create bureaucracy and legal uncertainties for EU companies. As reported by the SCMP, the rules would have required EU firms with more than 500 staff and 150 million euros ($162.7 million) in net turnover worldwide to conduct detailed audits of their suppliers and partners, including those in China.

The problem is that such detailed audits will put heavy and unnecessary political shackles on EU companies. What's even worse, the audits may be used as tools to politicize the issues of human rights and environmental protection, disrupt global supply chains and hinder normal cooperation between EU enterprises and their partners. There is no doubt that the EU's supply chain rules would result in economic losses for EU enterprises.

A Wednesday vote of the bloc's 27 members in Brussels fell short of the qualified majority required to adopt the rules. It is indeed a positive step by the EU. It proves that at the current time, there are more than a few political elites in the EU who don't want to see a serious conflict between the EU's political strategies and enterprises' business interests. This helps maintain European policymakers' basic strategic sobriety and rationality in the current complex situation of internal and external challenges.

In December 2021, the US signed the so-called Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act into law. While the act is drafted in a way that seemingly only targets certain products made in China's Xinjiang, all enterprises in the supply chain, including Western ones, suffer losses because they must prove themselves "not guilty," against the backdrop that the US government has made a presumption of guilt against them. This would cost companies a lot of time and money, even if they could prove it, which is nearly impossible.

It is not much of a surprise that the US may have hoped Europe could take similar steps to politicize issues such as human rights. So, especially when the US is pushing toward this direction from the outside, it is both timely and necessary for European leaders to have blocked new rules that would hold big companies responsible for so-called human rights and environmental abuses in their supply chains. In the current complex international environment, European leaders' strategic sobriety and rationality will help provide more room for the development of the European economy.

However, although Wednesday's vote fell short of the qualified majority, it is believed there will still be a small group of EU politicians who will try to continue to politicize human rights issues. Especially, Wednesday's vote may make the US more aggressive in pressuring Europe. This will test the independence of Europe's policy.

In recent years, the US has become increasingly unscrupulous in its campaign to contain China's economic rise, but the more the US wants to suppress China, the more it will drive China's development. 

China's Xinjiang is a good example. In 2023, Xinjiang's foreign trade totaled 357.33 billion yuan ($49.71 billion), a year-on-year increase of 45.9 percent, ranking second among China's provincial-level regions in terms of growth. 

Despite Western smears and malicious crackdowns, Xinjiang has entered the fast lane of development. A large number of European companies have invested in Xinjiang. 

The economies of China and Europe have a high degree of complementarity. Both sides should strengthen the complementarity of the market and supply chains, exploring new models of further cooperation.

The author is a reporter with the Global Times. bizopinion@globaltimes.com.cn