China urges joint fight against protectionism

Would like to enhance coordination with India to steer global economy, says Chinese spokesperson

Beijing, Jan. 24: China on Wednesday welcomed Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s speech at Davos where he described protectionism as being “as dangerous as terrorism”, and evinced interest in enhancing cooperation with India to strengthen the globalisation process.

Mr Modi, the first Indian prime minister to address the World Economic Forum ( WEF) annual summit in Davos in two decades, on Tuesday talked about grave concerns facing the world, including terrorism and climate change.

“Many countries are becoming inward focused and globalisation is shrinking and such tendencies can't be considered lesser risk than terrorism or climate change,” he had said.

“I noticed that Prime Minister Modi made some remarks on protectionism and his remarks showed that globalisation is the trend of the times and serves the interests of all the countries including developing countries and the fight against protectionism and promoting globalisation,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying told a media briefing here.

She also said China would like to work with India and others to strengthen globalisation process for the benefit of all. Her surprise comments followed official media here giving big play to Mr Modi’s speech where he called protectionism “as dangerous as terrorism”.

Some of the dailies like Global Times carried the photo of his address on the front pages. One of the biggest beneficiaries of globalisation, China has emerged as emerged as the world’s factory in the last three decades posting doubledigit GDP growth rates for years while thriving on massive exports to all parts of the world.

China is also firmly opposed to ‘ America First’ policy which was the main theme of Xi Jinping’s Davos speech last year.

“China and India share a lot of common interests. China would like to enhance coordination and cooperation with all countries including India to steer the economic globalisation towards benefiting world economic growth and well- being of all countries,” Ms Hua said.

Answering a question that Mr Modi’s speech “echoed” last year’s speech by Xi at the same forum where he made a pitch for globalisation, Ms Hua said Mr Xi called for moving globalisation to a more open, inclusive, universal, balanced and winwin direction.

Asked whether the common position of both nations could help improve strained bilateral ties, she said “Our position is clear. India is a big neighbour of China. As the two largest developing countries and as two close neighbours, of course we hope that we can maintain steady development of bilateral relations. It serves the interests of our two sides”.

I noticed that Narendra Modi made some remarks on protectionism and his remarks showed that globalisation is the trend of the times and serves the interests of all the countries including developing countries and the fight against protectionism and promoting globalisation. — HUA CHUNYING, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson