Protectionism hurts both

While dealing a fatal blow to Chinese producers, any decision by the European Union to impose heavy taxes on China's solar panel products may backfire.

Such a double-loss scenario is undesirable, especially when both China and the EU are struggling to cope with an economic slowdown.

After claiming to have opened an anti-dumping and anti-subsidy investigation into mobile telecommunications network equipment and components from China, the European Commission is planning to impose anti-dumping taxes of 47.6 percent on average on China's photovoltaic products. It would be the largest trade remedy case between the two sides in history.