Strategic Autonomy and Trade Defence:The Case of Cross-Country Subsidies

China's state capitalism poses considerable challenges for the global economic system. Initially,the public debate centred on its massive domestic subsidies. In the meantime, however, China'stransnational cooperation and subsidy programmes, which are closely linked to the Chinese'Beltand Road Initiative'(BRI), have come more into focus. For the first time, the EuropeanCommission has now made this cooperation with other third-countries the subject of anti-subsidyproceedings on the basis of a cross-country subsidy analysis and subsequently imposed counter-vailing duties on imports from the Chinese partner countries Egypt and Indonesia. Lawyers havecriticized this approach, arguing that it lacks a legal basis and is contrary to WTO law.However, the General Court and, more recently, Advocate General & Cacute;apeta have confirmedthe Commission's practice. This article argues that the cases decided so far prove to bemanifestations of a domestic subsidy, which can be covered by EU anti-subsidy law, at leastagainst the background of the effective protection against unfair trade practices intended by tradedefence and the objective of a strategic autonomy of the EU. At the same time, WTO law doesnot formulate any clear limitations with regard to this kind of attribution of foreign subsidies andtherefore does not prohibit the Commission's current practice. WTO law is also more open withregard to other forms of a cross-country subsidy analysis than is sometimes portrayed