The European Union will take the first step on Wednesday towards refashioning its trade ties with Beijing, torn over how to lower its defences to avert Chinese retaliation while protecting key industries against a damaging flood of cheap imports.
Commissioners from the bloc's 28 members will debate for the first time the politically sensitive issue of granting China "market economy status" from December, which Beijing says is its right 15 years after it joined the World Trade Organisation.
The coveted status would make it much harder for Europe to impose anti-dumping duties on Chinese goods sold at knock-down prices, changing the criteria for determining a fair price.
A study by a group of 25 European manufacturing federations estimates the European Union could lose up to 3.5 million jobs if it removes its trade defences against China.
The bloc's final decision, taken together with EU governments and the European Parliament, will set it on a collision course either with Beijing or with its own manufacturers and with Washington, which sees no obligation to treat China's heavily state-shaped economy as a market economy.
"My opinion is that China is not a market economy. But it is a major trade player and we have to take that into account," said one senior EU official. The Commission must take the initiative and all signs point to it accepting China as a market economy while seeking to keep trade defence measures for a transition period, which could appeal to sectors such as steel, chemicals or textile makers.
This could take the form of maintaining existing duties until their natural expiry - typically five years - and potentially raising duties imposed for illegal subsidies.
Chinese officials have said they could show flexibility in allowing a transition period for particular European industries. A 2013 deal to end an EU investigation into Chinese dumping of solar panels showed Beijing and Brussels can find agreement. The Commission's legal experts have advised it to grant China market economy status. A report prepared with two outside economists is expected to conclude this can be done, together with certain extra measures, without harming the EU economy.
The Commission has indicated no final decision should be expected before the summer, but an exchange of views with EU governments could come as early as February 2 when EU trade ministers meet in Amsterdam.
They seem divided, with free-traders like Britain, Nordic countries and the Netherlands likely to be in favour but with nations such as Italy, which compete with Chinese goods, and France being against granting market economy status.
Germany's position could sway the decision, which diplomats say is likely to need the support of all governments and not just a qualified majority. It is the EU's biggest exporter to China, but there is friction as China seeks to produce the kind of sophisticated products that compete directly with Germany.
Free trade advocates say Europeans gain from cheaper Chinese imports and that companies such as Alstom or Siemens will gain easier access to China's vast market in return. Rebuffing Beijing also risks retaliation.
The EU is China's largest trading partner, while China ranks second after the United States for the EU and was the source of some 302 billion euros ($330 billion) of imports in 2014, more than triple their level at the start of the century.
Market economy status is important because it determines the way in which dumping - selling at unfairly low prices - is assessed. With market economies, the test of dumping is to see if the export price of a product is below the domestic price.
In China's case, as a non-market economy, domestic prices are not considered a suitable benchmark. So its exports prices are compared with domestic prices of another country - in a recent stainless steel case, the United States was chosen.
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