It has taken Commissioner Mandelson a long time to wake up to just how successful the Chinese are at manufacturing things, just how much they now sell to us and how little we sell to them. Some of us have been pointing this out for years. I wrote about the surge in China and their likely future prospects in Superpower Struggles in 2005.

It is a bit rich of him to abandon his free trade principles now and to start to sabre rattle, using the language of a protectionist trade warrior. He helped preside over the rise of China during his early years in his current job.He should instead understand just how much damage EU regulation and taxation has done to our competitiveness, turning his attention to trying to help companies in the EU by cutting the costs the EU imposes on them.

Of course if China breaks the World Trade rules by subsidising, barring access or other anti competitive practises we need to take cases up through the WTO. We also need to remember that some of the worst anti competitive practises in the world are systems like the Common Agricultural Policy, devised and enforced by Brussels.

Mr Mandelson’s posturing does not mean much. He is not in control of World Trade rules - the WTO are. He and his colleagues have sold an important stake in Galileo technology to China, which is an odd decision given his current views of this new superpower. He should also understand that a lot of European businesses have now set up factories in China itself, despairing of the EU ever sorting out the huge cost burden it places on making things nearer to home.

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