Unmanned trucks transport containers at Dapukou Container Terminal in Zhoushan Port, Ningbo, Zhejiang, China, on December 9, 2025. Nurphoto | Nurphoto | Getty ImagesBEIJING — Supply chain diversification away from China is about to move from just talk to action.That’s what Jens Eskelund, president, European Union Chamber of Commerce in China, told reporters on Tuesday ahead of the launch of a report on supply chain risks, and as businesses look ahead to the new year after a tumultuous 2025.”Dependencies are being discussed in much more detail than they were before … Are we even sure Europe can manufacture toothpaste without ingredients sourced in China?” Eskelund said.Reflecting continued global demand, China’s trade surplus for the year through November reached a record $1 trillion, according to official figures released Monday. That means the country exported far more than it imported, despite U.S. tariffs.”The higher that production goes up, the higher the risk that countries will begin to react,” Eskelund said. He pointed out China faced a record high of 198 World Trade Organization trade investigations last year, well over half of which were from developing countries. Other figures cited by the EU Chamber in its report Wednesday showed that China’s share in containers shipped globally was creeping up — at 37% for the first three quarters of this year, up from 36% at the end of 2024 and 31.7% before the pandemic in 2019.A weak Chinese currency and domestic overproduction contributed to that growth, the chamber said. It recommended members “eliminate single-source dependencies” on the U.S. and China, and called on EU policymakers to “accelerate plans to identify and eliminate critical dependencies.” Investors have heard this conversation before. During Covid-19, businesses started to realize how reliant they were on products and parts from China, when stringent lockdowns to control the virus disrupted production. The stakes for businesses and their home base governments are far higher now compared t …
