The European trade commissioner set a deadline on Wednesday for talks over textile imports with Chinese officials before beginning a formal trade dispute against China over a surge in imports of its T-shirts and linen cloth.
The European Commission said the Chinese had until Tuesday to resolve the dispute.
"We made it clear to the Chinese that time is pressing," Claude Veron-Reville, a spokeswoman for the commission, said.
Failure to resolve the dispute would most likely lead to the reintroduction of import quotas on the two products in the first half of next month and might hamper efforts to avert a similar confrontation over other textile imports from China.
The move comes amid a debate over a referendum in France on Sunday on the European constitution, which has highlighted the proposed constitution's position on free trade.
Imports of Chinese textiles have been prominent in the debate over the constitution. Opponents argue that the sharp rise in Chinese textile imports is a symbol of the perils of globalization, a process they claim is championed by the EU.
The decision by Peter Mandelson, the European trade commissioner, was seen as an attempt to persuade French voters to vote in favor of the constitution.
"It's a desperate act, but what alternative did he have?" asked Romano Subiotto, a trade lawyer in the Brussels office of the law firm Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton.
Mandelson proposed urgent measures to quell the surge in T-shirts and linen imports from China last week amid signs that some European textile companies were being run out of business.
In the first quarter of this year, T-shirt imports from China into the EU have risen by 187 percent, compared with the first quarter of last year, the commission said. Chinese imports of linen have risen 56 percent during the same period.
Opening formal consultations will probably lead to the reimposition of quotas on Chinese T-shirts and linen, Subiotto said.
Under WTO rules, China's trading partners may impose quotas on Chinese textiles 15 days after starting the formal dispute if China fails to take action during that time itself.
"It's highly unlikely the two sides will find a way of averting new quotas during this period. They had a long time to discuss it informally already with no success," Subiotto said.
He added that there was a danger that the dispute could escalate.
The EU is investigating the importation of seven other categories of Chinese textiles, including pullovers and bras.
National Taiwan University (NTU) yesterday said it disqualified a person from an entrance examination for using AI smart glasses to cheat, along with two others for making untruthful statements in their curriculum vitae. The three applicants were given null scores, Taiwan’s highest-ranked university said, calling on prospective students to be honest in the admissions process. NTU registrar Lee Hung-sen (李宏森) said that the cheating applicant wore a hat and thick-rimmed glasses to the second written exam for medical school, claiming that they felt cold. Suspicions were aroused when the applicant stared oddly at the test for long stretches while steadily bringing the paper
A magnitude 7.8 earthquake struck off the southern coast of Mindanao in the Philippines at 7:38am today, prompting the US Tsunami Warning System to issue an alert for neighboring countries, including Taiwan. The system issued a purple alert indicating a "tsunami threat." The potential threat zone includes Taiwan, the Philippines, Papua New Guinea, Yap and Palau. Philippine authorities were assessing the damage from the quake, with the office of civil defense seeking to verifying initial reports that 15 people had been killed and 129 injured in the region, mostly from falling debris. Arlene Hollero, disaster chief of Maasim town in the Philippines' Sarangani Province,
‘GRAY ZONE’ PRESSURE: Beijing’s activities are intended to create the deceitful impression that China has jurisdiction over the area around Taiwan, the CGA said Taiwan’s rights over its territorial waters and exclusive economic zone must not be violated by any country, the Mainland Affairs Council said yesterday, adding that it will not accept any unprovoked actions. The council issued the remarks in response to the China Coast Guard conducting maritime enforcement drills near eastern Taiwan and claiming to fully exercise China’s maritime administrative law enforcement authority. The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) has been closely monitoring the situation and is taking concrete steps to defend the nation’s sovereignty and secure its waters, the council said. China has no sovereign rights over the waters off eastern
Heavy rain is expected to affect parts of Taiwan this week, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday as a meteorologist said the active part of the annual plum rain season has started. A stationary plum rain front and southwesterly winds would bring unstable weather and abundant moisture to Taiwan from today for about a week, with the heaviest rainfall forecast for tomorrow and Wednesday, the CWA said. The agency said western and northeastern Taiwan, and mountainous areas in the east and southeast, could expect showers or thunderstorms on those two days, with localized heavy rain possible. Other parts of
RSS