In complaints mirroring those of its U.S. counterpart, the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China said that Beijing is increasingly becoming more and more protectionist, making the nation a sometimes hostile environment for European businesses, according to the Straits Times, a Singapore newspaper.

Jörg Wuttke, president of the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China, told reporters on Tuesday that as China grows and becomes more economically prosperous, the nation is increasingly erecting barriers to foreign companies.

“After 30 years of progressive market reforms, many foreign businesses in the country feel as though they have run up against an unexpected and impregnable blockade,” he wrote in a Financial Times Op-Ed earlier this month.

A growing sense of nationalism in the country combined with better lobbying efforts by Chinese companies have effectively shut out many foreign competitors, Wuttke said. He warned that if the trend keeps up, it could sour relations between the EU and China.

In its 12th annual Business Climate Survey released earlier this month, the American Chamber of Commerce in China echoed the sentiments of its EU counterparts. The report found that U.S. companies operating in China are increasingly concerned about discriminatory government regulations and other policies that favor domestic companies.

The report found that seven of the top eight challenges American businesses are facing are related to obstacles imposed by the Chinese government.

“While most American companies are doing well in China, they are concurrently troubled by a mounting number of policy challenges ranging from the inconsistent enforcement of laws, to China’s discriminatory domestic innovation policies and regulations that limit market access into sectors that had been increasingly open to foreign investment for the past 30 years,” the report says.

Those survey results were released on the heels of another damning report about China’s growing protectionism, this one from the U.S. Trade Representative’s Office.

That report found that non-tariff trade barriers such as tax rebates, quotas, subsidies, lack of intellectual property rights protections, restrictive licensing systems and foreign equity limitations are all tools with which China discriminates against American manufactured goods.

It turns out, American companies are not the only one’s being excluded. China’s protectionist policies are helping its domestic companies, but could be irreparably harming long-term economic relationships.

“The pie is getting bigger and the door is getting narrower,” Wuttke told the Straits Times.

Print PDF