China Formally Challenges EU Industrial Accelerator Act, Warning of Countermeasures

This clash echoes the 1980s US–Japan semiconductor negotiations, when Washington demanded local content rules and technology sharing after Japan’s market share topped 50 %—pressure that ultimately reshaped global supply chains. The current EU move fits a two-decade trend toward strategic industrial policy (e.g., 2023 U.S. CHIPS Act, 2024 EU Net-Zero Industry Act) that reverses the post-1990s liberal orthodoxy of minimal state intervention. China’s rapid ascendancy—from under 1 % of global EV exports in 2015 to over 35 % in 2025—has triggered defensive legislation across the West; Beijing’s response signals it will weaponise its own market access and WTO litigation to deter a coordinated decoupling. Over a 100-year horizon, such tit-for-tat industrial measures may mark an inflection where multilateral trade rules give way to competing regional blocs, much as the 1930s tariff escalations preceded the Bretton Woods reset after 1944.