New Delhi, July 2 -- a redundancy notice. A hundred thousand jobs across the Volkswagen Group are marked for elimination, roughly fifteen percent of its global workforce, as the carmaker absorbs the reality that Chinese electric vehicles have crossed ten percent of total EU auto sales for the first time.

The European Union activated a new package of trade restrictions on China on July 1, restricting duty-free steel quotas and imposing a three-euro customs charge on small parcels shipped directly to European consumers from Chinese platforms. The measures are the latest step in a multi-year tightening cycle the bloc has described not as protectionism but as a structural correction. The EU recorded a trade deficit with China of €360.6...