German industry alone is now losing 10,000 jobs a month to China, and while China’s global share of manufacturing has risen from six per cent in 2000 to 30 per cent, Europe’s share has been halved to 17 per cent. The EU’s trade deficit with China has nearly doubled over the past decade to a gap exceeding $400 billion annually. Jens Eskelund, president of the EU Chamber of Commerce in China, compares the state of play to a “400-metre-long giant container ship loaded with 24,000 containers going to Europe and coming back almost empty.”