Adam Maguire

But

There's also a feeling that Europe's manufacturing sector is weak largely because China took advantage of the bloc's attempts at having free and open trade globally.

Critics of China have long been saying they're giving heavy subsidies to manufacturers in areas like steel and solar panels.

That's allowed them to come into Europe, undercut companies here and put many of them out of business.

And there's a fear that the same is now happening with EVs, which is one of the reasons why the EU has proposed kind of hefty tariffs on Chinese EVs.

But

In part of getting around that, manufacturers like BYD have established factories in countries like Hungary.

So technically, they'll be European-made cars, so not subject to the Chinese tariffs.

The question now, I suppose, is, well, will those joint venture rules now, would they kick in in those cases if this act comes along?

But the likes of BYD is important in this as well, because...

They're symbolic of another reason why some see China's opposition to this act as hypocritical, because the EV maker is part of China's own industrial plan, which was called Made in China 2025, which was unveiled over a decade ago.

And a lot of the ways, the success of that plan is what spurred Europe on to make the Made in Europe plan, essentially.

So this was a kind of national strategic plan to develop China's manufacturing sector from being the factory of the world to being a global player in its own right.

Because for years, of course, China's industrial policy was bring in European and American firms, we'll make your product cheaper than anyone else.

And it was really, really successful in doing that.

But China realised this model was limited because firstly,

It only worked if you were the cheapest.

And with China's growing middle class, costs within the country were rising, so it was getting harder to be the cheapest.

At the same time, you had India and Vietnam building up their industrial capacity and being more competitive in that area as well.

And China figured that, you know, because it had this massive manufacturing base, it had capacity, it had a huge amount of experience and know-how, it should now push on to become more than just a kind of contract manufacturer for cheap stuff now.