A worker checks wind turbine blades for export at a dock of the Lianyungang Port, East China's Jiangsu Province, on September 5, 2025. Official data showed that China's wind turbine exports grew over 20 percent in the first half of 2025, with renewable energy generator units exports to other BRICS countries up more than 70 percent and wind turbine components rising 11.8 percent. Photo: VCG

China's green exports to the EU have soared in 2025, with exports of wind power generators leaping 65.9 percent year-on-year, showing great potential for bilateral cooperation, an official with China's General Administration of Customs (GAC) said on Wednesday.

Chinese analysts said that the stable trade between the two major trading partners underlines their strong complementarity, and they called on the EU to refrain from taking protectionist measures in order to unleash the full potential of bilateral trade amid an increasingly complex global trade landscape.

At a press conference held by the State Council Information Office in Beijing on Wednesday, Lü Daliang, a spokesperson for the General Administration of Customs (GAC), noted that both China and the EU actively support the transition toward low-carbon development and green growth, with green development being a distinct feature of China-EU trade.

China and the EU are each other's second-largest trading partners. In 2025, China's trade with the EU reached 5.93 trillion yuan ($849.81 billion), an increase of 6 percent year-on-year, accounting for 13 percent of China's total foreign trade and contributing 0.8 percentage points to China's trade growth, Lü said, citing Chinese customs statistics.

Data from the EU side shows that in the first ten months of 2025, EU-China trade exceeded $700 billion, accounting for 14.5 percent of the EU's total trade and contributing over 0.8 percentage points to the EU's trade growth. 

The economies of China and the EU are highly complementary, with deeply intertwined interests, Lü said.

In 2025, China's exports of wind power generators to the EU increased 65.9 percent year-on-year, while exports of electrical equipment such as direct current charging piles and energy storage batteries grew by 25.4 percent. At the same time, China's imports of recyclable products from the EU rose by 18.9 percent. 

China's green and low-carbon transition is accelerating, creating broad opportunities for cooperation in green sectors between the two sides, Lü said.

The complementarity of strengths has evolved into intertwined interests, according to Lü. More than 50 percent of cosmetics imports and nearly 60 percent of automobile imports in China come from Europe, while China's exports of pharmaceuticals and industrial robots to Europe maintained growth rates of over 20 percent in the past year.

At present, unilateralism and protectionism are on the rise, posing severe challenges to the rules-based multilateral trading system. Both China and the EU are constructive forces that uphold multilateralism and actively advocate openness and cooperation, Lü said. 

The two sides should move toward each other, persist in dialogue and cooperation, properly handle differences, jointly uphold free trade, practice multilateralism, and promote the sound and stable development of China-EU economic and trade relations, said Lü.

Zhao Junjie, a senior research fellow at the Institute of European Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times on Wednesday that China and the EU have great potential for cooperation, particularly in the field of green development.

However, the rise of protectionism in the EU in recent years and the erection of trade barriers have inhibited the strong growth momentum of such cooperation, Zhao said. "Now we are seeing stable growth in trade between China and the EU, although the potential should be greater due to the strong complementarity of the two trading partners."

Zhao said the two sides should look at potential trade boosters such as new investment deals to further tap their potential in the face of a growingly volatile world and make the pie of common interests bigger.

Zhang Jian, a vice president of the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, told the Global Times on Wednesday that both China and the EU are massive markets, and both have benefited from the growth of bilateral trade. 

"In an increasingly uncertain world, China and the EU are becoming more important to each other, and mutually increasing certainty to their respective economic development. If the EU shifts its mindset to embrace open development and suppress protectionism, China-EU trade is expected to reach new heights in the new year and achieve faster growth," Zhang said.

Lü made the remarks while commenting on the performance of China-EU trade, as well as the recent progress in negotiation concerning China's new-energy vehicles (NEV) exports to the EU.

China and the EU have agreed on price undertaking guidance for Chinese battery EV makers, China's Ministry of Commerce announced on Monday, marking a significant step forward in resolving the two-year-long dispute.

Analysts said the move underscores the fact that the world's two major economies are capable of resolving trade disputes through consultation and dialogue, setting a positive and much-needed example at a time when the global economy is facing rising unilateralism and protectionism, marked by high tariffs.