In two recent WTO meetings, for which the minutes were recently circulated, China raised concerns with a range of EU measures: EU steel tariffs, an Italian decree on renewable energy sources, the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, and the Industrial Accelerator Act.

Last week, political leaders in the EU debated taking stronger action to address trade imbalances with China, but ultimately put off deciding on a specific action until later in the year.

China's Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) downplayed fears of a "full-blown" trade war with the European Union on Thursday, stating that trade communications remain "smooth" and that Brussels has explicitly indicated a trade war is not its goal.

The EU is moving forward with new rules on steel to protect the EU market from "global overcapacity," a move likely to exacerbate trade tensions with China in the process.

Last week, EU Trade Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič discussed a number of aspects of current EU-China trade tensions, which have become a bit more heated in recent weeks as the EU discusses a potential new instrument to address imbalances in its bilateral trade with China.

A new academic paper examines how China uses anti-dumping investigations as a retaliatory response to anti-dumping/countervailing duty investigations it faces in other countries, focusing on the example of China's pork investigation in flipping Spain's vote in the EU electric vehicle case.

As part of an ongoing discussion in the EU on how to respond to economic harm from Chinese exports, a group of EU member states has published a paper that makes the case for a variety of new trade tools.