China yesterday joined Washington in opposing a “unilateral” plan by the EU to impose carbon emissions charges on all airlines in its airspace from Jan. 1.
The comments from China’s foreign ministry came after the EU’s highest court threw out a bid by US and Canadian airlines to block the introduction of the scheme, also triggering an angry response from Washington.
“We oppose the unilateral legislation imposed by the EU,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Liu Weimin (劉為民) said at a regular briefing.
“We hope the European side will be prudent and practical, and deal with this issue appropriately through consultation with relevant parties including China,” he said.
Airlines around the world have denounced the EU plan to charge them for carbon emissions, warning it would cost the industry 17.5 billion euros (US$22.9 billion) over eight years.
China has said it fears its aviation sector would have to pay an additional 800 million yuan (US$126 million) a year on flights originating or landing in Europe, and that the cost could be almost four times higher by 2020.
Under the EU scheme, airlines would have to pay for 15 percent of the polluting rights accorded to them in 2012, the figure then rising to 18 percent between 2013 and 2020.
The tax would affect all of China’s major airlines — including Air China, China Eastern and China Southern, the China Air Transport Association (CATA) previously said.
A spokesman for CATA declined to comment when contacted.
China reportedly blocked an order by Hong Kong Airlines for billions of euros’ worth of Airbus aircraft earlier this year in retaliation for the EU move, underscoring the potential for a significant trade row.
Chinese state media yesterday quoted CATA deputy secretary Chai Haibo (柴海波) saying he had urged government agencies to take “trade countermeasures” against the EU.
The US airlines association that brought the case before the European Court of Justice said it would mull further action in the English High Court, but meanwhile would comply with the European Union — though “under protest.”
North American carriers argued the decision was discriminatory and amounted to a backdoor tax.
The court ruled that the EU’s approach was valid, and that it “infringes neither the principles of customary international law at issue nor the Open Skies Agreement” covering trans-Atlantic flights.
The decision was welcomed by the EU, which told US airlines to get ready to obey the law in the same way European companies respect US regulations.
The threat of knock-on effects hung in the air, however, after a warning by US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton of possible reprisals some days ago.
The judgement “risks unleashing a trade war between Europe and the United States,” a high-ranking aviation source said.
The European Commission said after the ruling that the Emissions Trading System would come into force as scheduled.
SEMICONDUCTOR SERVICES: A company executive said that Taiwanese firms must think about how to participate in global supply chains and lift their competitiveness Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday said it expects to launch its first multifunctional service center in Pingtung County in the middle of 2027, in a bid to foster a resilient high-tech facility construction ecosystem. TSMC broached the idea of creating a center two or three years ago when it started building new manufacturing capacity in the US and Japan, the company said. The center, dubbed an “ecosystem park,” would assist local manufacturing facility construction partners to upgrade their capabilities and secure more deals from other global chipmakers such as Intel Corp, Micron Technology Inc and Infineon Technologies AG, TSMC said. It
NO BREAKTHROUGH? More substantial ‘deliverables,’ such as tariff reductions, would likely be saved for a meeting between Trump and Xi later this year, a trade expert said China launched two probes targeting the US semiconductor sector on Saturday ahead of talks between the two nations in Spain this week on trade, national security and the ownership of social media platform TikTok. China’s Ministry of Commerce announced an anti-dumping investigation into certain analog integrated circuits (ICs) imported from the US. The investigation is to target some commodity interface ICs and gate driver ICs, which are commonly made by US companies such as Texas Instruments Inc and ON Semiconductor Corp. The ministry also announced an anti-discrimination probe into US measures against China’s chip sector. US measures such as export curbs and tariffs
The US on Friday penalized two Chinese firms that acquired US chipmaking equipment for China’s top chipmaker, Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯國際), including them among 32 entities that were added to the US Department of Commerce’s restricted trade list, a US government posting showed. Twenty-three of the 32 are in China. GMC Semiconductor Technology (Wuxi) Co (吉姆西半導體科技) and Jicun Semiconductor Technology (Shanghai) Co (吉存半導體科技) were placed on the list, formally known as the Entity List, for acquiring equipment for SMIC Northern Integrated Circuit Manufacturing (Beijing) Corp (中芯北方積體電路) and Semiconductor Manufacturing International (Beijing) Corp (中芯北京), the US Federal Register posting said. The
India’s ban of online money-based games could drive addicts to unregulated apps and offshore platforms that pose new financial and social risks, fantasy-sports gaming experts say. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government banned real-money online games late last month, citing financial losses and addiction, leading to a shutdown of many apps offering paid fantasy cricket, rummy and poker games. “Many will move to offshore platforms, because of the addictive nature — they will find alternate means to get that dopamine hit,” said Viren Hemrajani, a Mumbai-based fantasy cricket analyst. “It [also] leads to fraud and scams, because everything is now
RSS