[DRAOBE]

Uh, what sort of conflict do you think China could provoke? I have a hard time seeing a free salmon treaty with China giving rise to more conflict than normal neighbor disputes.

If Norway started selling all its oil to China, then we'd have something. But the EU borders Norway, and China doesn't so there isn't much in favour of it. In addition, China doesn't border the EU, so I don't think it sees much value in a divided EU (as opposed to Russia). To them it is probably more interesting to distance the EU from the US.

[avar]

I don't know what sort of FTA Norway was in the process of negotiating in 2010, but if it's anything like the treaty it signed with Iceland in 2013 calling it a "free salmon treaty" is the understatement of the century.

You can read the full list of tariff concessions by Iceland[1], as well as the rest of the treaty[2] MFA website.

It covers anything from food, tools, machinery, to raw ore and metals to finished nuclear reactors. Almost all tariffs on Chinese goods entering Iceland are set at 0%.

This means that Iceland (or hypothetically Norway in the future) can import say cheap industrial acids from China, and use them to make finished products that could be sold to the EU market using existing EU/EEA trade deals that give preferential tariff treatment to EEA members.

That's the potential conflict I'm talking about. China's setting up agreements where a country with wide access to its internal markets has better access to cheap Chinese goods than other EU/EEA countries.

Which means that either the EU needs to slow down liberalization of trade with Iceland (and perhaps Norway in the future) least they essentially become hubs to evade EU duties on Chinese goods, which'll pull those countries further into the Chinese sphere of influence.

Or it'll need to make similar deals itself, or otherwise live with the resulting trade imbalance with Iceland and Norway becoming re-exporters of Chinese goods.

1. https://www.mfa.is/media/fta-kina/Vidauki-I---Tollaaetlanir-...

2. https://www.mfa.is/foreign-policy/trade/free-trade-agreement...