On the one hand, they are forced by the obscene power of the United States to clamore for "decoupling from China," and on the other hand, they are not willing to take the huge interests of the Chinese market, and the European countries are very hard-mouthed but very honest, and they have recently slapped the United States in the face with practical actions. On February 28, the European Union voted unanimously on the "**chain bill" proposed two years ago called the "Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive". Surprisingly, in the end, Sweden voted against, and 13 member states, including Germany and Italy, directly abstained, and the bill was not passed. This incident also fully shows that the "decoupling from China" advocated by the Western camp led by the United States is completely unpopular, and European countries still do not care about the "US attitude" in the face of absolute interests.
The reason why this notorious "** chain bill" has attracted attention from all walks of life and has also been highly valued by the United States is that it has the effect of "killing two birds with one stone". Because the essence of the bill is to impose "long-arm jurisdiction" over enterprises of other countries under the banner of "human rights and environmental protection", which is also the best trick of Western countries against China in recent years. Once the bill is passed, the interests of a large number of Chinese companies operating and developing in Europe will suffer serious losses, and they will even be squeezed out of the European market. At the same time, the countries of the European Union will not have any better time.
Although China-EU relations are complex and volatile, economic and trade development is still flourishing. Until now, China is still the EU's largest importer, second largest partner and third largest export destination. This also means that after the passage of the bill, the European and Chinese markets will be further decoupled, and both bilateral and chain cooperation will be completely separated, which is undoubtedly worse for European countries in the context of the economic downturn.
According to the legal mechanism of the Council of the European Union, such a major bill requires the "unanimous consent" of internal members. In the original plan of American politicians, the EU countries have been governed by the United States in recent years, and it is obvious that they will not make a fuss about the vote. However, the result was extremely embarrassing for American politicians, with 13 countries, including Germany, abstaining from voting on the bill, in addition to Sweden's veto, and even preventing half of the bill's support. According to the process, in the next two weeks, the EU Council can also further vote by introducing alternatives, however, because the bill is obviously unpopular, it is difficult to get more support in the short term, and the European Parliament elections will also start in June, so the West ** generally believes that this bill has "existed in name".
Looking at politics through the economic lens, the reason why the "decoupling from China" bill is unpopular is that most European companies cannot do without China. Recently, the Conference Board released a statistic: as of now, 98% of European business leaders do not want to leave the Chinese market. Just after the results of the vote were announced, many entrepreneurs in Europe breathed a sigh of relief.
The Chinese market has always adhered to an open and inclusive policy, and a steady stream of business opportunities and huge volume have also become the focus of many European enterprises, especially large multinational enterprises. It is no exaggeration to say that Sweden, which voted against this time, and Germany, Italy, etc., which abstained from voting, have many enterprises in these countries that have been operating and developing in China for a long time, and are inextricably linked with China's ** chain market, and also have huge business interests that cannot be underestimated in China. In the face of real money, these countries obviously will not act against the sky, which in turn will arouse the opposition of domestic entrepreneurs.
Taking Sweden as an example, although Sweden has always been very resolute in implementing the anti-China policy of the United States, Swedish entrepreneurs are living very well in the Chinese market. The well-known Volvo, IKEA, Ericsson, Electrolux, etc. are all Swedish companies, which have a huge industrial chain in China and will obviously not give up easily. Furthermore, the current ruling party in Sweden is a center-right party, and its governing philosophy is more pragmatic and rational, which is completely different from the "white left camp" of the ** faction, so it voted against it very strongly.
In fact, European countries have woken up and no longer blindly followed the United States' "decoupling from China" plan, to a large extent, they have accepted the lessons of the Russia-Ukraine conflict. After the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, EU countries followed the United States in launching sanctions against Russia. However, after losing cheap Russian energy, an energy crisis soon broke out in Europe, and the United States, as an ally of the European Union, not only fully took over Russia's original European energy market, but also launched the "Inflation Reduction Act" to take advantage of the energy crisis to harvest the economies of European countries. This kind of behavior of "cutting leeks" has also really made European countries realize that the United States is a friend and cannot be made. It can only be said that the principle of "America first" has never changed, and "decoupling from China" will only eat up Europe itself, and Europe will naturally not do this kind of loss-making business.