Chinese President Xi Jinping, who concludes his week in search of the world’s top CEO, has become one of his most enthusiastic defenses: international trade, as a system of globalized supply chains that helped China catapult into stakers on the brink of economic superpower.
Just days before Donald Trump’s self-declared “liberation day” on April 2, when the US president was set to unleash a new wave of tariffs on his American trading partners, the smiling XI led a group of over 40 global business leaders into the gorgeous rooms of people in Beijing’s great halls.
Without naming the US, Xi Chiang spoke to guests. Guests have done some countries to “force weaponization” and “oppose economic principles” from George Jewel Hedley of HSBC and Oracalenius of Mercedes-Benz to Aminnaser of Saudi Aramco and Akio Toyoda of Toyota.
“We need to jointly maintain a multilateral trading system and jointly maintain the stability of our global industrial chain,” he said.
The meeting with business leaders continued in the week when China held its most important annual business summit. The China Development Forum in Beijing and the Asian Boao Forum on a tropical resort island.
Both messages were that compared to Trump’s chaotic policymaking, Beijing was a fortress of stability, which undoubtedly more than any other country – it benefited, and was the champion of the global trading system that it still relied heavily on.
Trump threatened to impose drastic “mutual” tariffs on his American trading partner on Wednesday. The US is scheduled to sign a broad investigation into trade with China on Tuesday, as well as subsidies and conversions for Beijing’s industrial policy, trade subsidies and conversions through other countries.
Analysts say many foreign trade partners have accused China of worsening in recent years, running a huge surplus while setting barriers to the domestic market. But Trump’s threat to globalization makes international businesses more comfortable with Beijing’s message.
“In the end, China is very stable. There’s no surprise at the policy making,” said Dennis DePoe, global managing director of consulting firm Roland Burger, who attended the Beijing and Boao forum. “Perhaps China looks better than before, as the rest of the world is confusing.”
At the annual general meeting of China’s Rubber Stamp Parliament this month, leaders sought to strengthen the stability of their ambitious GDP annual growth target of 5%, backed by a record-breaking central government budget deficit plan.
“If you want to ask that it’s a quiet decision that we believe they are on the right path, the place, the world in China and the world, what I’m witnessing.”
“No matter how the external environment changes, China is open to the world,” said Din Xuexiang, a member of the elite standing committee of the Communist Party’s political governance committee, assuring the people gathered in Boao.
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The relative stability of China and recent success in advanced technologies, such as the advent of Deepseek artificial intelligence software, has encouraged scholars who declared party-led developers to be a great model for the so-called “Global South.”
“Modernization of the West… is very exclusive,” Zheng Yongnian of China University in Hong Kong said during a panel discussion on Bo’ao’s Global South. “The West will not help develop other countries, poor countries.”
Zheng said the West instead put pressure on poor countries on issues such as human rights.
“Modernization of China, I’ll give it a name, I call it that… Modernization of open source,” he said. “When you get rich, you help other countries get rich.”
However, China also has its own urgent reason to defend its global trading system. It is an acute dependence on exports for growth. It is dependent on critics for their claims that it is due to US trade backlash.
Currently the second largest economy in the world, but the chronic shortage of China’s domestic demand contributed to a record surplus of nearly $10 in its record trade surplus with other parts of the world last year.
Beijing has announced numerous measures to recalibrate the economy by increasing domestic consumption, but this trend is moving in the opposite direction, the economist said.
“Last year, China’s consumption actually fell as a share of GDP,” said Michael Pettis, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Fund for International Peace.
At Bo’ao, some speakers said that since World War II approached the end, the systems of manufacturing and export to the rich Western countries that have enriched the rich countries of Asian countries must find new paths to development.
Danny Kua, professor at National University of Singapore, said:
Huang Yiping, dean of Peking University’s National School of Development, said access to the US market will be “in the short term” invaluable as other countries cannot play the same role.
However, he urged countries still open to trade to maintain existing globalization infrastructure: the IMF, the World Trade Organization and other institutions.
“Despite the fact that the US influence may be declining, the rest of us should still work together and at least maintain that order,” Huang said.
China is also keen to restructure its relationships with other trading partners, such as the EU. However, many European business leaders and consultants have warned that Beijing needs to take real steps to reduce the overwhelming trade surplus with the EU, especially if relations improve.
This includes radically improving access to your own market. International investors have called for countless non-tariff barriers, and foreign direct investment has been declining rapidly in recent years.
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“In terms of openness to the outside world, outside ideas, China seems to be heading in the wrong direction,” said one foreign executive. “But so does the US.”
Depot, Roland Berger, said he suggested that to Chinese companies, they should propose a factory for the building, rather than simply exporting goods, to improve access to the European market.
“If you go to Europe with good plans to bring investment, know-how and employment to your clients, the red carpet will unfold before you,” he said.
