China faces new EU subsidy probes days before Xi visit
BRUSSELS—The European Union is ramping up economic pressure on Beijing with two new probes into allegations of unfair Chinese business practices, days ahead of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s planned visits to Paris and Budapest. The European Commission, the bloc’s executive body, is voicing growing concern over Chinese subsidies and other economic policies that it says harm European businesses.
The bloc in recent months has used a new legal tool to probe Chinese companies’ bids for public tenders in Europe, and last year launched an antisubsidy investigation into electric vehicle imports from China. This week, the commission said it would investigate China’s domestic procurement practices for medical devices, which the EU said unfairly favor Chinese companies over European and other foreign rivals.
If the EU probe supports those allegations, the bloc could change its own procurement rules to limit Chinese companies’ ability to compete in Europe or bar them from some bids. The probe is the EU’s first under its new International Procurement Instrument, which came into force in 2022 and aims to address what officials see as unfair procurement rules in other countries.
The bloc said it can suspend the investigation if China changes its procurement practices or commits to doing so. China’s exports of medical devices to Europe more than doubled between 2015 and 2023, the commission said.
It said the EU’s markets are generally open, while China’s procurement rules give an advantage to domestic companies that produce medical devices as part of a “Buy China" policy. The bloc also separately raided the Dutch and Polish offices of Chinese security equipment company Nuctech over allegations that it may have received foreign
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