China's anti-dumping measures against brandies imported from the European Union are "legitimate trade remedy measures," the commerce ministry said on Wednesday, a day after imposing the temporary curb.
French brands such as Hennessy and Remy Martin will face the strictures, adopted just days after the 27-nation bloc voted for tariffs on Chinese-made electric vehicles (EVs), sparking its biggest trade row with Beijing in a decade.
China's commerce ministry said preliminary findings of an investigation showed that dumping of brandy from the European Union threatened "substantial damage" to domestic industry.
On Wednesday the ministry said the EU's actions against Chinese EVs "seriously lack a factual and legal basis" and "clearly violate" World Trade Organization (WTO) rules.
China has protested strongly to the WTO, it added.
Trade tensions have surged since the European Commission said last week it would press ahead with tariffs on China-made EVs, even after Germany, the bloc's largest economy, rejected them.
Another sign of rising trade tension was the ministry's remarks on Tuesday that an anti-dumping and anti-subsidy investigation into EU pork products would deliver "objective and fair" decisions when it wraps up.
It also said it was considering a hike in tariffs on imports of large-engine vehicles, which would hit German producers hardest. German exports to China of vehicles with engines 2.5 liters in size, or larger, reached $1.2 billion last year.
