The EU is set to unveil new public procurement rules aimed at keeping Chinese companies out of government contracts — good for European industry, bad for Chinese exporters and for EU-China trade relations.

• The rules turn the EU's €2.5 trillion government spending market, about 15% of its economy, into a tool of economic policy.
• Bidders offering suspiciously low prices will have to explain themselves or be thrown out of the running.
• China is not named in the draft, but it is the clear target after years of complaints about unfair state subsidies and export limits on critical minerals.
• Contracts touching key infrastructure, supply chains, and technology will also be judged on spying risk and resistance to cyber or physical attack.
• This follows a separate European manufacturing law with local-content rules that Beijing already called discrimination.

Outlook: Expect Beijing to push back hard and trade tension between the two sides to keep rising.