Additional reasons to complain about the news media. Today's target is the Associated Press, specifically this article reporting on some comments made by Peter Mandelson about EU-China trade.

First, the headline: "European Union Seeks Open China Market." Get real here. I would doubt that Mandelson would suggest, even in a speech, that the market here is closed. Either way, making it a headline like that is a touch misleading, don't you think? Hyperbole is the norm - having a headline that used the words "More Open China Market" is just not sexy enough. Better to suggest that China's market is still closed and that it hasn't lived up to its WTO promises.

Second, the article obediently follows the suggestion that the EU's growing bilateral trade deficit with China is the result of unfair practices and/or failure to liberalize market sectors. The long list of issues, including IP enforcement, subsidies, etc. are things that must be addressed and which constitute real problems. Taking this one step further and suggesting that if these problems are fixed, the bilateral trade deficit will melt away is a leap in logic so idiotic that you usually only hear it from protectionists in the U.S., and you know how they are . . .

Third, this nugget, that China must "stop demanding European companies hand over technology to Chinese partners." Maybe I'm missing a whole lot of coercive activity out there, but to my knowledge, this sort of thing went out a long time ago, at least since China passed a new Technology Transfer Law a few years back. You don't want to hand over technology, don't license it. When you finish doing business here or want to switch a distributor or partner, take your tech back. Easy to do with the right contractual language under existing law. What the heck are they talking about? It sounds quite sinister, doesn't it? I get visions of industrial espionage or something.

Contrast this with this measured piece from the Financial Times, which includes this nice quote from the Commission that summarizes the reality of the issue quite well:

There is a growing risk that the EU-China trading relationship will not be seen as genuinely reciprocal. Political pressure in the EU to resist further openness to Chinese competition is likely to increase if these problems are not addressed, as we are already seeing in the US.

See, that's what is really going on, protectionism and politics as usual. Gee, the FT reports on a trade issue better than the AP? Who would have seen that coming?