Chasing China: How should the UK and EU respond to China’s competitive threat?

Good evening everyone. Um, very well very warm welcome to Chattam House. My name is David Lubin. I'm a senior research fellow in the global economy and finance program here and I'm very very happy to be introducing our speakers today. James King on my far left, senior research fellow in the Asia program, uh, formerly a legendary

journalist on the Financial Times. Uh to my left, Gia Leam, head of public affairs at the UK China Business Council. And online, uh Ignasio Garcia Baserero, a senior fellow at Bgal, the Brussels think tank, but formerly a very distinguished trade official with the World Trade Organization and with the European Commission. Um we're here to

discuss how the EU and the UK should respond to China's competitive threat. uh and who knew what uh a kind of momentous month October turned out to be in terms of the trade relationship between the EU and China. Um I'm going to ask James first to give us a sense of what he thinks the competitive threat

is. Um James is particularly well placed to uh to set out his views because at the end of September he published a paper that I recommend you all have a look at called China Shock 2.0. O and Europe's industrial future that came out on the 30th of September. Um I should say that this meeting is not uh under

the Chattam House rule. We're on the record. We're being live streamed. So just beware. Um uh I think that's all I need to say to you. Welcome again, James. So what is the competitive threat that China is posing to the to the EU? >> Thank you very much, David. Uh it's a great pleasure to be here. Thanks uh

everyone for coming. Um I think uh the China shock 2.0 has been written about quite a bit by now. My personal definition is that China has now overtaken the United States to become the world's leading technology power and in the process it has left Europe far behind. Of course that's a generalization. We can't generalize