China's message to US

The year 2016 was marked by a strong wave of right-wing populism, isolationism, protectionism, and anti-globalization on both sides of the Atlantic. The current British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and UK Independence Party leader Nigel Farage successfully sold their anti-globalization campaign in the run-up to the Brexit referendum in June 2016.

Similarly, real-estate mogul Donald Trump successfully won the US presidential election on November 3 the same year with bombastic anti-globalization speech and the "America First" slogan.

Amid these trans-Atlantic upsurges in protectionism, Chinese President Xi Jinping firmly stood up as a leading defender of globalization and free trade, and as an anti-isolationism campaigner.

For instance, three days before Trump was inaugurated as the 45th president of the United States, Xi vigorously criticized protectionism. He defended free trade and pluralateralism at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on January 17, 2017. He emphasized China's ambition for a more significant global role in the pro-globalization and freetrade leadership left vacant after Trump's victory.

Xi compared protectionism to "locking oneself in a dark room in the hopes of protecting oneself from danger, but in so doing, cutting off all light and air."

"No one will emerge as a winner in a trade war," Xi said in the massive jamboree of politicians, businesspeople, and policymakers from all over the world, where current Democratic Party presidential contender and former US vice-president Joe Biden was also present.

"Ready or not, China has become the de facto world leader seeking to maintain an open global economy…. In effect, President Xi has become the general secretary of globalization," was how the state-run China Daily extolled the Chinese leader before he visited Davos.

About 42 months later, Xi changed his anti- protectionist stance amid the global pressure resulting from China's alleged mishandling of the Covid-19 outbreak that triggered a worldwide eco