France Proposes "Plaza Accord" Against China, Six European Countries Jointly Oppose Strongly, Warning That China Is Not Japan!

On February 9, the French government's advisory body "High Council for Strategy and Planning" released a report, hyping up the "Chinese industrial threat," explicitly calling on the EU to draw lessons from the 1985 "Plaza Accord" targeting Japan, by imposing a 30% tariff on Chinese goods or pushing the euro to depreciate against the yuan by 20%-30% to cope with Chinese manufacturing competition. Although the French side did not openly use the term "Plaza Accord," its core proposition - through the coordination of Western economies, forcing the renminbi to appreciate, limiting China's export advantages, and reshaping Sino-EU trade rules - indeed evokes the financial rivalry between the US and Japan back then.

However, this time, there was an unusual rift within Europe: six Nordic and Baltic countries including Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Sweden, and Denmark quickly signed a joint statement expressing strong opposition, meaning "China is not Japan of the 1980s," and warning that such measures would not only be ineffective but could also severely harm Europe's own interests.

The 1985 "Plaza Accord" was a joint effort by the United States with Germany, France, the UK, and Japan to coordinate intervention in the foreign exchange market, forcing the Japanese yen to appreciate significantly to ease the US's massive trade deficit. As a result, Japan's exports were hit, asset bubbles expanded, and it eventually fell into a "lost decade." Today, French elites propose that in the face of China's rapid rise in areas such as new energy, electric vehicles, and photovoltaics, Europe should emulate the previous model, uniting with allies like the US to apply systemic pressure on China. They claim that this is a necessary measure to maintain Europe's "strategic autonomy" amid the "Sino-US double squeeze."

What amuses Dao Ge is that don't the French know that today's China is fundamentally different from Japan in terms of economic structure, policy tools, and global role? Japan in the 1980s was highly dependent on the US market, had an open financial system controlled by the dollar system; while today's China has the world's largest manufacturing system, complete supply chain, vast domestic market, and independent monetary policy and capital account management capabilities. To put it bluntly, Japan back then had no choice but to accept the Plaza Accord, while China dares to directly send the 055 destroyer into the port of Marseille, which is not comparable at all.

Original article: toutiao.com/article/1856989915801034/

Statement: This article represents the personal views of the author.