51.7 billion USD were repeatedly calculated, accounting for 30 % of the China-EU
trade surplus. In 2009, this proportion reached 33 %.
Therefore, the China-EU trade surplus issue has much exceeded the bilateral
scope to some extent. The EU faces challenges from deepening economic inte-
gration in Asia, which are also challenges posed to the trade policy as a result of
economic globalization, rather than merely challenges from China.
3.4 Trade Disputes
The sharply increasing China-EU trade surplus led to more and more friction in
China-EU trade. In recent years, China has become the largest country against
which the EU took trade defense measures, which has become an irrefutable fact
(see Table3.2).
According to data from the European Commission Directorate-General for
Trade, in 2012, the EU launched 13 anti-dumping investigations against 7 types of
products, among which 4 investigations involved China, while more than half of the
products under these investigations came from China and 30 % of these investi-
gations dealt with China. In the same period, the EU initiated 6 anti-subsidy
investigations against 5 types of products, among which 3 investigations involved
China; 60 % of the products under these investigations came from China and 50 %
of these investigations dealt with China.^26 In addition, the EU also launched 14
expiry reviews (among which four involved China), in which 11 products were
determined to be continuously subject to the anti-dumping duty (among which 4
products came from China). All of the 6 anti-circumvention investigations launched
by the EU were against China.
Meanwhile, 8 anti-dumping investigations completed by the EU in 2012
involved 6 types of products, among which 5 products came from China,
accounting for 63 %. There were 7 cases in which the EU completed anti-dumping
investigations and did not impose the anti-dumping duty rate in 2012, among which
4 cases involved China.
Anti-dumping investigations launched against China by the EU in recent years
had the followingfive new characteristics.
First, major cases became salient. Generally, the proportion of amounts of cases
involved in anti-dumping investigations launched against China by the EU did not
exceed 2 % before 2012; however, this situation totally changed in 2012.
After SolarWorld, headquartered in Germany, on May 17, 2012, won a pre-
liminary ruling about anti-dumping and anti-subsidy investigations initiated by it
against Chinese photovoltaic products in the USA, the Company and more than 20
European companies forged the EU ProSun Alliance to present an application to the
European Commission concerning an anti-dumping investigation against
(^26) http://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/docs/2012/december/tradoc_150133.pdf.
3 China-EU Economic and Trade Relations 83