It may be that you are not allowed to buy a car in Europe or the US and ship it to China without paying Chinese import duties on it.

> Smuggling implies that either the country of export doesn't want it going out, or the country of import doesn't want it coming in.

Not really. You can be smuggling to evade taxes, eg. cigarette smuggling.

China has limits on the importation - in addition to tarrif and requirements like the undercarriage being cleaned of foreign soil they have limits on importing foreign cars as one per person and Chinese residents only. Likely protectionism motivated - it fits with their other foibles resulting in things like having iPhones they built smuggled back into their own country at a marked up price.

I think China has pretty strict limits and taxes on importing vehicles as a way to support local manufacturers.

China, and many other developing countries, have absurdly high (100%+) taxes on cars not manufactured locally.

Import taxes are higher on expensive cars ~10%, so this is tax evasion: https://www.cnbc.com/2016/12/01/china-hikes-tax-on-imported-....

It's often because the cars are stolen or to avoid paying import tax.

As it says in the fine article, China wants to encourage its own luxury and performance car making segment by restricting foreign imports.

I think China was trying to levy something like a a 50% or a 100% import tax on imported vehicles.

Yes, luxury imported vehicles are taxed anywhere in between 200% to 300%

Protectionism of local manufacturers, I take it ...

You cannot import cars into US unless the exact same model been crash tested in US.

And of course, manufacturers abuse it to lock US market.

Once a car that was never sold in the US turns 25, it can be imported for road use.

https://helpspanish.cbp.gov/s/article/Article-278?language=e...

They can imported before that for museum, collections, or racing-only use, of course.

But there’s nothing stopping manufacturing in China and selling those cars in the us. No super high tariffs either ranging from 2.5 to 25%. Lower than chinas that’s for sure.

I think you've confused smuggling with trafficking.

Tax is a bitch.