Illustration: Chen Xia/Global Times

As Europe reportedly weighs fresh trade barriers against Chinese chemical and plastic products, Chinese experts on Friday warned that trade barriers cannot fix Europe's competitiveness problems, urging the EU to stop scapegoating Chinese imports and instead carefully assess what its broader industrial base truly needs, as well as the risks that blunt protectionist measures could pose to downstream industries and supply chains.

The remarks came as European countries were reported to be pushing for trade defence measures targeting certain intermediate industrial products imported mainly from China, amid the EU's recent tightening up of trade restrictions against China.  

On Friday, Reuters reported that European governments plan to press the EU to deploy a rarely used trade defence tool to protect the chemicals and plastics sectors from surging imports, mainly from China, citing sources familiar with the discussions.

The report said the European Union is toughening its trade stance as its industrial base, including a crisis-hit chemicals sector, while also pointing to the reason as under growing threat ‌from cheap imports even as it faces the partial closure of many US markets due to US administration tariffs.

France, Italy and likely Germany — the bloc's three largest economies — plan to submit requests within weeks for broad import quotas, known as "safeguards", three sources told Reuters. The requests would focus on polymer resin polyethylene terephthalate — commonly known as PET and widely used in packaging — along with chemicals epoxy resin and glass fibres, the report said.

The reported move comes as the EU is taking an increasingly tough stance on Chinese goods, with some voices still threatening further trade defence measures.
 
Yet the deep interdependence between Chinese and European industrial chains makes a full decoupling from China difficult. In today's globalized economy, China is not only a major export market for the EU but also a critical link in its supply chains. Chinese experts said sweeping trade barriers risk severing key links in Europe's own industrial supply chains, while doing little to improve productivity.

"Simply attributing the difficulties facing some European industries to Chinese imports reflects a misunderstanding of current China-EU trade relations," Huo Jianguo, a vice chairman of the China Society for World Trade Organization Studies in Beijing, told the Global Times on Friday.

He noted that many chemical and plastic products are raw materials or intermediate goods. While Europe remains competitive in fine chemicals and high-value-added finished products, producing those goods still requires large volumes of globally sourced inputs. Competitive Chinese intermediate goods help lower production costs for European manufacturers and strengthen the competitiveness of their final products, Huo said.

"This is fundamentally a mutually beneficial relationship, rather than a so-called market shock," Huo said, warning that artificially restricting such supplies could instead expose European manufacturers to higher costs and greater supply pressures.

Policymakers' growing preference for sweeping trade barriers against Chinese goods risks drifting further away from what industries actually need for their long-term development. Chinese experts said the challenges facing Europe's chemical industry are multifaceted, including persistently high energy costs, and policymakers need to identify the real sources of the sector's difficulties rather than expend political capital on making China a scapegoat.

Clearly, this increasingly impulsive trade restrictions against China are clouding policymakers' judgment.

A Financial Times report earlier this year showed that investment in Europe's chemicals sector fell by more than 80 percent in 2025, while plant closures doubled, as industry leaders warned that the continent risked becoming dependent on China for raw materials needed in the automotive, healthcare and defence industries.

Notably, citing a report by the European Chemical Industry Council (Cefic), the report said confirmed investments fell from 1.9 megatonnes of capacity in 2024 to just 0.3 megatonnes in 2025, as the sector struggled with high energy prices and "suffocating bureaucracy," while the report also pointed to an expansion of Chinese imports as another source of pressure.

Similarly, Reuters' Friday report reiterated that Europe's chemical industry is facing one of its worst crises in 30 years with high energy prices, weak demand, competition from China and Asian suppliers. 

More fundamentally, Europe's chemical sector is also grappling with a sustained erosion of production capacity.

Cefic noted on June 22 that EU27 chemical capacity utilisation remains at historically low levels, around 74 percent, well below its long term average and consistently below overall EU manufacturing. 

This underperformance confirms the structurally weaker position of chemicals within the European industrial base. In the first quarter of 2026, chemical production declined by 3.2 percent year-on-year, highlighting the fragility of the current trend.

The downturn is particularly pronounced in "other organic basic chemicals" and polymers, while only selected specialty and consumer-oriented segments show resilience. Across member states, the improvement remains highly uneven, with France showing modest growth, while Germany, Italy and the Netherlands continue to experience significant contractions, the report said.

It is time for China and Europe to seek mutually beneficial solutions to their trade frictions, Chinese experts said. More viable options include expanding Chinese investment in Europe and promoting joint ventures, but this would require greater sincerity from the European side rather than unilateral pressure and demands on China, Huo said. A more pragmatic approach to cooperation could create more market opportunities for European companies while also helping ease current industry difficulties, he added.