According to a survey carried out in 2025 in the EU, more than 60% of low-value products inspected did not comply with European requirements or safety standards.

That is the difference. If you buy it from an EU based retailer, they will have imported something like a shipping container filled with the same type of product. So you need to basically check for that product once, if it is dangerous or whatever. If you get a bunch of very different products coming in via parcels, that can easily be 1000x more checks being required, which is basically impossible to do.

This is not about punishing China, but to make sure that Chinese sellers are actually following EU laws, when selling their products in the EU.