On September 27, the Financial Times that Chinese companies had sent thousands of workers to Europe to build cutting-edge automotive battery factories, which the European continent urgently needed to revive its automotive industry.The report said that this large-scale workforce flow, similar to China's practice of sending workers to Africa to build infrastructure, both highlighted the huge gap in European skills and expertise in the field of electric vehicle batteries, but also exposed Europe's reliance on Chinese technology.
The most prominent example, for example, is from China’s Nindy Era (CATL), one of the world’s most advanced battery manufacturers, which plans to send 2,000 workers to jointly build and equip a battery factory worth €4 billion in Spain with Stellantis.
CATL said the company promised to recruit and train local workers to operate the Spanish factory after it is completed, just like the German battery factory that will be put into production in 2022. In addition, CATL is also building a larger 7 billion euro factory in Hungary.
With the bankruptcy of Europe’s “batteries” Northvolt, and the large power outage on the Iberian Peninsula at the end of April this year exposed to the resilience of the European power grid and the serious malfunctions of energy policy, European governments such as Spain have realized the importance of seeking energy storage technologies from Chinese companies.
However, the report of the Financial Times is still "unwillingly" provoked, hype rendering topics such as "Chinese enterprises strictly protect intellectual property rights", "not willing to share industrial secrets with local workers and enterprises".
Mar Vaquero, deputy chairman of the Aragon Autonomous Region, also said that Ninder’s production of batteries locally would remove doubts about the viability of the Stellantis Group plant, the core pillar of the industry with internal combustion engines, employing 350,000 people in the region, which not only guarantees the future of the Aragon region’s automotive industry, but also laid the foundation for the Aragon region’s automotive industry.
The battery plant project, located near the capital of the northeastern Spanish Aragon Autonomous Region, Zaragoza, isly consolidating Spain’s position as one of China’s closest partners in Western Europe.
TIME told local officials that to build the plant, the company will send a total of 2,000 owners to participate in the construction of the plant, a figure unprecedented in Chinese industrial projects on European economies.
The new plant will be built on a plot of land owned by the Stellandis Group, adjacent to one of the group's European and American automobile factories. The factory, built by General Motors in the 1980s to build brands such as Opel, Peugeot and Lancia, is now aging.
In addition to CATL, EnvisionAESC, a battery manufacturer owned by another Chinese energy giant Envision, is also planning to build a battery factory in western Spain. Germany's Volkswagen cooperates with China's Guoxuan Hi-Tech to build factories in Germany and Valencia, Spain.
In January this year, the U.S. Department of Defense included enterprises such as the NINGD era in the so-called "China military-industrial enterprises list", when the spokesman of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Guo Jiangkun, stressed that China has consistently resolutely opposed the U.S. side to the universalization of national security concepts, set up a discriminatory list of various names, unreasonably suppressed Chinese enterprises, curtailed China's high-quality development.We urge the U.S. side to immediately correct the wrong practice, immediately lift illegal unilateral sanctions and long-arm jurisdiction over Chinese enterprises.
Earlier this year, U.S. Treasury Secretary Bessent even warned Spain that the country was considering a closer relationship with China, “not as much as cutting its throat,” while Spain’s Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Luis Planas, responded: “We have good trade relations with China, and we want to not only maintain this relationship, but also expand it.”
According to the Financial Times, Stellantis Group will receive 298 million euros from the EU's "Next Generation Fund" for its cooperation project with CATL, which is also supported by the two major political parties in Spain.
Spain’s left-wing prime minister, Sanchez, has been actively seeking trade and investment cooperation with China and has visited China three times in the past two and a half years, while the center-right conservative People’s Party, which opposes Sanchez on most other issues, also supports building battery plants.
Wakero, deputy chairman of the Aragon Autonomous Region People's Party, said: "The relationship between Spain and China is very important for these projects, and it is reasonable that we must see China as a country with a high level of innovation and technology and that will stand by other countries."
A Spanish government official said: "China is a leading country when it comes to electric vehicle batteries. We want them to invest and build an ecosystem with them."
“We’ve established leadership,” said Benito Tesier, chairman of the Aragon Automobile Industry Association (CAAR), “but the rules of the game have changed, and now we have to redefine ourselves.”
The Financial Times pointed out that in the electric vehicle battery market dominated by Chinese companies, Swedish battery giant Beifu was once regarded as "the hope of Europe." But as the giant officially filed for bankruptcy in Sweden on March 12 this year, Europe's most promising efforts to check and balance Chinese electric vehicle battery manufacturers ended.
At the end of April this year, the most serious large-scale power outage in nearly 20 years occurred in the Iberian Peninsula and surrounding areas of Europe. Spain, Portugal and parts of southern France fell into darkness, and Andorra, Belgium and other countries were also affected. The lives of about 60 million people were directly affected. The blackout also triggered reflections on the resilience of European power grids and energy policies.
Hong Kong’s South China Morning newspaper quoted analysts as saying that this massive power outage is likely to be a “turning point” in European energy policy, noting that governments are beginning to realize that, given the increasing role of renewable energy in power supply portfolios, the “urgent need” for upgrading the grid is imminent.
These analysts further pointed out that this European power outage may be an important opportunity for Chinese enterprises to enter the European energy infrastructure market.As a leading global supplier of energy storage and power grid construction technology, China's achievements in the development and application of related technologies play a key role in preventing large-scale power outages and ensuring the stability of the power grid.
"We need to use various technologies in China to improve the power grid," said Ismael Morale, climate policy manager of the Spanish think tank Renewable Energy Foundation. "I think what we really need from Chinese companies at present is energy storage technology. Spain urgently needs to improve its energy storage capacity."
Earlier, China's Foreign Ministry spokesman, Lin Jian, stressed that the global energy transformation should not only be a "Chinese story", but also a "world story" of united cooperation between countries. "The Third Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the Party has indicated the direction for the future development of clean energy in China.We will continue to uphold the concept of ecological civilization, deepen international green cooperation with the international community, promote the sustainable development of energy in all countries, and make a greater Chinese contribution to the global response to climate change and energy green and low-carbon transformation."