热焦点评（24-24）：中国一万亿体量的“新三样”出口能否抵挡打压？

彭澎接受南华早报采访

题外话：中国一万亿体量的“新三样”出口引发关注。这些“新三样”（电动车、锂电、光伏）在国内产能过剩很明显，转向出口有利于消化产能。但是，欧洲开始控制我国新能源汽车，美国对我国的光伏也有打压。目前，中国有企业去欧美开厂，这是一个可选的方案。还有在东南亚等设厂避开反制的选项。现在不局限于这些区域，有企业已经去到非洲、南美。

China’s 1 trillion yuan EV, solar and battery exports face overcapacity concerns as US, EU anxieties grow

· Beijing has already recognised overcapacity as a major challenge for 2024, with US and European Union anti-dumping probes and tariffs disrupting trade

· But analysts say that China’s trade frictions are also tied to the economic challenges that it is struggling with at home

Ralph Jennings and Kandy Wong

Published: 6:00am, 24 Feb, 2024

China’s 1 trillion yuan (US$139 billion) exports of electric vehicles, lithium batteries and solar cells could face a new round of challenges this year, as Western policymakers have reflected “genuine anxieties” about overcapacity distorting their markets.

Legal action and tariff increases by the United States and European Union against a perceived oversupply of cheap products could set back a critical segment of the world’s second-largest economy, unless China diversifies away from the West and also boosts domestic demand, analysts said.

“The key question is how these industries struggle against these growing headwinds, which aren’t just tied to finding new commercial opportunities, but balancing against geopolitical and trade policy risks, as well,” said Nick Marro, lead analyst for global trade with the Economist Intelligence Unit.

“I think it will be less of an ‘excuse’ for Western policymakers to engage in protectionism, and more a reflection of genuine anxieties around whether these products are distorting their own markets.”

You can get a sort of immediate protective effect by raising an anti-dumping case

Jayant Menon

He also noted there is a “growing sentiment” in Western capitals that work against the idea of having their consumers subsidise China’s growth engine.

The European Commission has launched anti-subsidy investigations into Chinese EVs and a train maker, while the US Department of Commerce placed import duties on solar panel makers that finish products in Southeast Asia to avoid tariffs on made-in-China goods.

The US government already bars EV battery materials from China as a “foreign entity of concern”.

The Ukraine war, which marks its second anniversary on Saturday, is also a factor affecting China’s ties with Western markets, with the British government on Thursday announcing a new package of sanctions against Russia that included three Chinese electronics companies.

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“You can get a sort of immediate protective effect by raising an anti-dumping case,” said Jayant Menon, a senior fellow at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore.

 “Once a competitor loses that market share, it’s difficult for the country to recover it.”

Chinese manufacturers would be able to make 4,800 gigawatt-hours of batteries in 2025, four times the demand of its EV makers, according to online investment publication Gelonghui.

The annual supply capacity of solar panels reached between 800 gigawatts and 1,100 gigawatts last year, well ahead of projected global demand of some 300 gigawatts, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit.

Expanding domestic demand is a difficult undertaking that takes time, effort, and perhaps most importantly domestic reforms

Wang Zichen

Chen Zhiwu, chair professor of finance at the University of Hong Kong, said that local governments provide venture capital, land tax breaks to EV companies.

“Beijing recognises insufficient domestic demand is a key economic challenge,” said Wang Zichen, a research fellow at the Beijing-based Centre for China and Globalisation.

“However, expanding domestic demand is a difficult undertaking that takes time, effort, and perhaps most importantly, domestic reforms.”

Top Chinese leaders called “overcapacity in some industries” a major challenge for 2024 at the annual central economic work conference in December.

Marro added that China’s trade frictions are as much tied to the economic challenges that it is struggling with at home.

“Deflationary forces and weak domestic demand tie back to the slowing Chinese growth engine and weak consumer confidence,” he said.

“The worsening imbalances in the Chinese economy regarding savings and investment are naturally replicated in the trade arena.”

In a paper issued in February 2023, the MIT Technology Review said that the development of batteries and EVs offered China’s automotive sector growth opportunities during the coronavirus pandemic as well as more weight in “climate policy leadership”.

And China can ease overcapacity and avoid the wrath of Western countries by setting up factories in the US or Europe – which is already an “option” – or in Southeast Asia, said Peng Peng, executive chairman of the Guangdong Society of Reform.

Producers can also sell their hardware to India or other parts of the world that are not aligned with the US or Europe because the sheer number of other potential non-Western markets can help offset dips in demand, Peng added.