Thank you, Madam Chair. It's very good to see you again.
As you heard, I'm creator and executive director of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China. That's an international cross-party group of parliamentarians working to address challenges associated with the Chinese Communist Party under the leadership of Xi Jinping. I'm proud to say that this includes around 30 Canadian parliamentarians from all parties, some of whom are represented today.
On electric vehicles, since 2020, China has emerged as the largest manufacturer and exporter of EVs in the world, and its capacity continues to grow as a result of policies such as extensive state subsidies and other non-market practices. In 2023, China's annual EV exports totalled $47.2 billion, up from $0.2 billion in 2018. Automobile imports from China to Canada's largest port, in Vancouver, jumped 460% year over year to 44,356 in 2023.
China undermines markets and competition with massive state subsidies that amounted to $57 billion between 2016 and 2022. A further 20% cost advantage is achieved through Chinese control over the supply chain and raw materials. This allows Chinese EVs to undercut the market by between 20% and 30%. This doesn't even include the advantage gained through China's comparative lack of environmental and labour standards, including through the presence of forced or state-imposed labour in Chinese supply chains.
Similarly, and very importantly, Chinese overcapacity in aluminum and steel is structural, persisting and worsening. These are highly strategic industries core to the development and deployment of innovation, especially in the defence and energy transition sectors.
Despite softening global demands, China, the world's largest steelmaker, has increased its steelmaking capacity by 18.6 million metric tons since 2018. This is more than Canada's total production capacity. Similarly, China's primary aluminum capacity has grown from 11% of global production share to 59% over the last two decades, with the government investing up to $70 billion between 2013 and 2017.
China's weakening economy now exposes this excess capacity even further, fuelling unprecedented export surges that are disrupting markets and creating spillover effects in other sectors and across the globe. Failure to address this spillover will leave our companies weakened and lacking the financial capacity to make investments required for the energy transition. Takeovers by Chinese companies, which would further embed Chinese supply chains, may end up being the only option to prevent permanent closures and resultant job losses across the whole of our own supply chain.
It's really important to emphasize that Beijing makes no secret of its intent to undermine the economic security of liberal democracies, as it views our values as an existential threat to the regime's legitimacy, and neither is Beijing averse to weaponizing its advantages in pursuit of its global ambitions.
Very briefly, what is the remedial action? What can we do? Addressing this is much more than simply seeking to protect our markets from Chinese overcapacity, unfair competition and distortionary practices. It's about the principles of free and fair trade, supporting the innovation of our companies and ensuring companies and workers gain from an energy transition that is secure and clean and aligns with our core values.
We have to think beyond bilaterals and tariffs. Low-demand overcapacity is proliferating globally in addition to and beyond China, in particular in the ASEAN, the Middle East and North Africa.
We'd recommend developing a shared strategy to address the issue in emerging economies. I want to emphasize that whatever is done, it has to be done in alignment with allies. The reason for that is that there are ways around tariffs, and the PRC has demonstrated willingness and ability to circumvent them. It's also worth noting here that misalignment with allies on tariffs can have far-reaching consequences for free trade and other bilateral or plurilateral trade agreements.
Canada could, and should, build upon the commitment from G7 leaders in June 2024 to act “together to promote economic resilience, confront non-market policies and practices that undermine the level playing field and our economic security, and strengthen our coordination to address global overcapacity challenges.”
This is an international problem that requires international alignment to address.
Madam Chair, I'm very happy to address questions or recommendations, and I yield the floor.