This has been going on for a year now.

The EU began enforcing a small parcel tax directly against Temu last May [0] and France has been strongly lobbying against Shein and Temu [1]. The EU has also made Chinese overproduction a critical topic of discussion for EU-China relations [2][3], and barring Temu and Shein is backed by both unions and industrial groups within Europe [4].

All of this is linking to the EU's strategy of playing hardball against Chinese support of Russia's invasion of Ukraine [5][6], as well as the Chinese perception that the EU is a has-been [7] as well as active info-war against a European state [8].

[0] - https://www.ft.com/content/102e18d7-d06b-4405-a347-97bb3c373...

[1] - https://www.ft.com/content/b1fdbad1-2793-4975-a10b-74bb928d3...

[2] - https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/society-equity/eu-law...

[3] - https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20260326IP...

[4] - https://www.lemonde.fr/economie/article/2025/09/15/les-indus...

[5] - https://www.bruegel.org/podcast/how-war-ukraine-reshaping-eu...

[6] - https://www.osw.waw.pl/en/publikacje/osw-commentary/2025-01-...

[7] - https://fddi.fudan.edu.cn/_t2515/57/f8/c21257a743416/page.ht...

[8] - https://www.defense.gouv.fr/desinformation/nos-analyses-froi...

EU fines Temu €200M for allowing sale of illegal products