The EU investigation into Chinese subsidies for its green industries has drawn the ire of Beijing, with a counter accusation that the EU is seeking protectionism for its companies.

The investigation by the EU’s anti-trust commissioner Margrethe Vestager will consider subsidies received by Chinese suppliers of wind turbines destined for Europe and was mounted in response to the fear that domestic makers were being undercut by using Chinese government money.

China, for its part, is playing the injured party, claiming that the investigation is nothing more than a thinly veiled attempt of protectionism.

Vestager, delivering a speech in the US a few days ago said that the EU needed to consider these issues in a more coherent manner and stop, what she called “whack-a-mole” measures to curb unfair Chinese competition, on wind, solar and high-tech.

Last October the EU launched a similar investigation into subsidies for EVs, and other Western countries have also raised concerns of practices such as dumping and flooding sectors with cheaper goods that could undermine Western companies attempts to create domestic supplies with resultant losses of capacity, technical leads and supply chain risks.

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