Cina, Ue, crisi debito, commercio, investimenti
La Cina dice che i controlli commercialidella UE guastano gli sforzi per sconfiggere la crisi del debito
– La Cina potrebbe subordinare l’aumento dei suoi investimenti nei paesi dell’euro indebitati il suo aiuto alle concessioni commerciali etc.
o La Cina ha acquistato titoli EFSF e titoli di vari paesi dell’euro, ma non se ne conosce l’esatto ammontare.
– Contesa Cina-UE:
o il ministro cinese al Commercio: un’indagine della UE sui sussidi ai prodotti siderurgici cinesi danneggerebbe gli sforzi comuni per superare la crisi del debito dell’eurozona; sarebbe un segnale di protezionismo. È una violazione delle regole del WTO indagare contemporaneamente per gli stessi prodotti su dumping e sussidi.
o Portavoce commercio UE: la Ue applica la regola WTO del “minor dovere”, che di fatto avvantaggia gli esportatori cinesi.
– La scorsa settimana il primo ministro cinese, Wen Jiabao: la Cina intende aumentare il suo contributo al fondo di salvataggio della UE, EFSF, l’Europa sia cauta a intraprendere misure commerciali contro la Cina.
– A gennaio 2012 l’associazione dei produttori siderurgici europei, Eurofer, ha presentato la seconda (in sei settimane) denuncia anti-sovvenzioni contro la Cina presso la Commissione UE; a novembre 2011 aveva presentato una denuncia anti-dumping sempre per gli stessi prodotti.
Curiosità sull’interesse della Cina per l’Irlanda
DIDI KIRSTEN TATLOW
– La Cina vuole rafforzare i legami con i paesi della UE, suo maggior partner commerciale.
– Dopo la visita negli Usa, l’Irlanda è l’unica sosta in Europa del vice-presidente cinese, Xi Jinping, dato come prossimo presidente.
o Il vice-presidente cinese ha visitato l’area di libero scambio di Shannon, inaugurata nel 1959, modello delle Zone economiche speciali del Sud della Ciba (1980) fu visitata da diversi leader cinesi (dall’allora vice-ministro per il commercio estero, Jiang Zemin, ex capo del PCC; in seguito da due primi ministri, Wen Jiabao e Zhu Rongji, e da due vice primi ministri).
o Negli ultimi 15 anni l’Irlanda ha vissuto una profonda trasformazione che ha colpito i funzionari cinesi, passando da paese povero e agricolo ad paese ricco e ad alta tecnologia.
o L’Irlanda, 4,6 mn. di abitanti, è uno dei pochi paesi ad avere un surplus commerciale con la Cina.
– I leader cinesi sono interessati ad investimenti nei paesi UE toccati dalla crisi, e già visitati di recente: Grecia, Portogallo, Ungheria, Spagna e Italia; l’Irlanda è l’ultimo.
– In gennaio 2012 la Cina ha fatto il suo primo investimenti diretto nelle infrastrutture britanniche: il Fondo statale China Investment ($410MD) ha acquistato l’8,68% di Kemble, il gruppo privato che controlla Thames Water, società di servizi, valore dell’accordo valutato tra i $940MD e i $1100MD;
– sempre a gennaio, il gruppo manifatturiero cinese produttore di macchinari Sany Heavy Industry e la società per azioni Citic hanno acquistato la holding del produttore di pompe tedesco Putzmeister, per circa €360mn.;
a dicembre 2011, il gruppo statale China Three Gorges Corp ha acquistato il 21% della società di servizi portoghese EDP, €2,7MD.
– BEIJING—China said a European Union[e] investigation into Chinese steel products would damage joint efforts to cope with the euro-zone debt crisis, suggesting that Beijing may link its aid to concessions on trade and other matters.
– China is "intensely displeased" about the EU’s antisubsidy investigation into organic coated sheet-steel products imported from China, and the move will send a "wrong signal of trade protectionism" to the world, the country’s Ministry of Commerce said Thursday in a statement.
– The investigation "will not only cast a shadow over normal steel trade between Europe and China, it will also harm efforts for China and Europe to jointly respond to the crisis," the statement said.
– "Currently, as the world economy has still not cast off difficulties from the global financial crisis, and many European Union[e] countries are mired in a sovereign debt crisis, every country should be taking a cooperative, open and inclusive attitude to jointly respond to the crisis," it said.
– The statement marks the most explicit link yet drawn by China between its aid to Europe and trade frictions. Many analysts have predicted that China would demand trade concessions in return for increasing its investment in the sovereign debt of euro-zone countries, but Chinese officials have thus far only vaguely hinted at any conditionality.
– Last week, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said at a news briefing that China is preparing to increase its involvement in Europe’s sovereign bailout fund, the European Financial Stability Facility, while adding later that he also hopes Europe can be prudent in taking trade actions against China.
– In its statement Thursday, the Ministry of Commerce said it is a violation of World Trade Organization rules to simultaneously investigate the same products for dumping and subsidy violations.
– EU trade spokesman John Clancy said the group complies with WTO rules and jurisprudence. "In fact, the EU applies the optional WTO law provision called lesser-duty rule that is very beneficial for Chinese exporters," he said. "In most cases, this will eliminate the potential for any double counting of subsidy and dumping. Should an issue of double-counting arise, the EU will abide by its WTO obligations."
– China has been a consistent buyer of EFSF bonds and the sovereign bonds of various euro-zone nations, but the exact level of its purchases remains unknown.
– The European steel association, or Eurofer, in January filed the antisubsidy complaint against China at the European Commission. It was the second complaint filed by the association against China in within six weeks; it filed an antidumping case on the same products in November.
Curiosity Over China’s Irish Interest
– BEIJING — Cultural clichés somersaulted last weekend when Vice President Xi Jinping of China, the man expected to be the country’s next leader, told the people of Ireland on a visit there: Cheer up!
The irony of a representative of what are perhaps the world’s greatest pragmatists telling perhaps the world’s greatest optimists to buck up wasn’t lost on the Irish, winded by one of the worst economic crises in debt-struck Europe.
Typically, they made a joke out of it: “The Chinese are here — look busy” ran a headline in The Irish Times on Saturday, the day Mr. Xi arrived for his three-day visit, midpoint in a tour that began in the United States and continued in Turkey.
– Yet the question on the minds of many was: Why did the man who may become one of the most powerful leaders on earth choose Ireland for his only stop in the European Union[e] on his “coming out” tour?
A key reason may be a kind of free-trade pilgrimage — to the Shannon Free Zone, first visited by Jiang Zemin, the former Communist Party chief but then a vice minister of the State Imports and Exports Administration, in 1980.
– Chinese officials often say the free-trade area, set up in 1959, was a model for their own successful Special Economic Zones in southern China, which powered economic reform here starting in 1980. China now wants to upgrade its industries, and the high-tech Shannon Free Zone is of interest as a regional model, Irish commentators said.
– Other leaders who have visited Shannon include two prime ministers, Wen Jiabao and Zhu Rongji, and two vice prime ministers, Huang Ju and Zeng Peiyan. During his own visit, Mr. Xi requested a personal briefing from Dr. Vincent Cunnane, the chief executive of Shannon Development, which runs the zone, the company said in a statement.
– Another reason to visit Ireland may be what Jonas Parello-Plesner, a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, called “the omni-directional diplomacy of China.”
“When the Foreign Ministry and the State Council plan senior leaders’ trips they try to cover widely, including small and insignificant countries,” Mr. Parello-Plesner said in an e-mail.
– China also wants to enhance ties with individual European nations — the European Union[e] is its leading trading partner — and increase investment in a weakened continent.
Mr. Xi’s delegation of 150 officials and businessmen attended a banquet at the Bunratty Castle in County Clare, quaffed Irish coffee at a family-run dairy in the village of Sixmilebridge (where a newborn calf was named after him), visited the precipitous Cliffs of Moher, whacked a sliotar with a hurley (a ball with a hurling stick) on the hallowed ground of the Gaelic Athletic Association at Croke Park in Dublin, watched a performance of “Riverdance” and signed trade, investment and education deals in Dublin Castle.
Falun Gong and Tibetan rights advocates demonstrated, but in small numbers. Most striking was a one-woman protest at the Cliffs of Moher, where the police intercepted Sinead Ni Ghairbhith as she walked toward Mr. Xi holding a “Free Tibet” placard and shouting “Stop Killing Innocent Tibetans!”
– Mostly, however, Mr. Xi charmed wherever he went, urging the Irish to trade and invest more deeply in China and holding out the promise of job creation in a nation struggling with 14 percent unemployment.
Specifically, he told the Irish and other Europeans not to “talk down” their economies, in comments headlined by the state news media in China, where the visit was prominently covered.
– “China does not think one should ‘talk down’ or ‘short’ to Europe, because we believe that the difficulties facing Europe are temporary, and the E.U. and the governments and people across Europe have the ability, the wisdom, and the means to solve the sovereign debt problem and achieve economic recovery and growth,” Mr. Xi said in a written interview with The Irish Times, published on Saturday.
– Over the last 15 years, Ireland achieved something that fascinates Chinese officials — a transition from a poor, agricultural nation to a rich, high-tech one.
Even as Mr. Xi’s Air China 747-400 landed in Shannon, a statement by him was distributed to waiting journalists describing Ireland as “a success story of moving, in a short period of time, from an agro-pastoral economy to a knowledge economy.”
– Mr. Parello-Plesner pointed to another important factor: “It is the last of the crisis-hit E.U. countries that hasn’t gotten a senior leader visit,” he said.
– Leaders including Prime Minister Wen, President Hu Jintao and Deputy Prime Minister Li Keqiang, the man expected to succeed Mr. Wen, have visited Greece, Portugal, Hungary, Spain and Italy recently, “so Ireland is long overdue,” Mr. Parello-Plesner said.
– “There is the same general interest to get a foot in the door on investments,” he said. “I can imagine that Ireland, with austerity budgets for years to come, could need some Chinese investments.”
– China’s investments these days are also omni-directional, a reflection of its growing power in the early years of a century that may well become a Chinese one.
– In January, China made its first direct investment in Britain’s creaking infrastructure, The Guardian reported, when its $410 billion sovereign wealth fund, China Investment, bought an 8.68 percent holding in Kemble, the privately owned group that controls Thames Water, a utility company, in a deal analysts valued between £600 million and £700 million, or about $940 million and $1.1 billion.
– Also in January, the privately held Sany Heavy Industry, a Chinese machinery manufacturer, together with the Chinese private equity firm Citic, bought the German pump maker Putzmeister Holding, in a deal worth €360 million, or almost $480 million, according to Xinhua, the state-run news agency.
– In December, the state-controlled China Three Gorges Corp. bought 21 percent of the Portuguese utility company EDP for €2.7 billion, Reuters reported.
– Ireland, with just 4.6 million people, is one of the few nations to run a trade surplus with China. That intrigues the Chinese.
Yet there was little talk of a more troubling parallel — economic bubbles.
– Ireland’s debt-fueled property bubble burst in 2009. China’s economy, some economists warn, faces fast-growing debt plus a range of possible bubbles from real estate to art to the price of Tibetan mastiffs.
For now, though, Chinese eyes are smiling in Ireland.