China worries about EU-U.S. plans for free trade pact
China has raised concerns about European Union plans to negotiate an ambitious free trade deal with the United States, fearing it is a protectionist move, a senior EU official said on Tuesday.
The EU argues that a deal would strongly benefit the United States and the EU but other countries would also profit from the expansion of trade and investment across the Atlantic. "That was the reassurance we gave to the Chinese," the official said.
The European Union is China's biggest trading partner.
Chinese officials raised the possibility of Beijing negotiating its own free trade agreement with the EU, a prospect that the EU official did not rule out "in the medium to longer term."
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/05/07/us-eu-us-trade-idUSBRE9460QG20130507
... the rising competitive challenge from China has increased the incentive for both Europe and America to develop common technical and regulatory standards for a $30 trillion transatlantic market to ensure that Western-style capitalism, not Chinese state capitalism, remains the global norm.
Moreover, contrary to the widespread assumption that protectionist sentiments are rising in the wake of the Great Recession, 58 percent of Americans say they support increased trade with the EU. The same feeling exists across the Atlantic. Three-quarters of the Italians, nearly two-thirds of the British (65 percent) and more than half of the French (58 percent) and Germans (57 percent) believe in deepening trade and investment ties between the European Union and the United States; 63 percent of Americans agree, according to a 2007 German Marshall Fund survey.
http://www.pewglobal.org/2013/02/19/the-public-supports-a-transatlantic-trade-pact-for-now-2/