It is our sincere commitment to open the Chinese market. Our doors will open ever wider
Xi Jinping,
Chinese President
shanghai — President Xi Jinping on Monday pledged to widen access to China’s economy, while delivering a veiled rebuke to Trumpism, as he kicked off an import expo amid growing foreign accusations that he was backtracking on grand promises to play fair on trade.
Xi said China would “step up” efforts to stimulate imports, lower tariffs, ease customs clearance procedures, and implement harsh punishments for intellectual property infringements, though he was light on specifics. “It is our sincere commitment to open the Chinese market,” Xi said in an address opening the event in Shanghai. China would “foster a world-class business environment” and its doors will open “ever wider”, he said.
But Xi also pushed back at foreign pressure in comments clearly aimed at Donald Trump and the trade war he launched between the world’s two largest economies.
Nations “should not just point fingers at others to gloss over their own problems”, Xi said, decrying “protectionism”, “isolationism” and “the law of the jungle”. “They should not hold a flashlight in hand, doing nothing but highlighting the weaknesses of others and not their own.”
Beijing has touted the first annual China International Import Expo as a sign of its willingness to open its markets despite mounting criticism to the contrary and the worsening trade war with Washington, which has seen both sides impose punitive tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars worth of goods.
Organisers say more than 3,000 foreign companies from 130 countries including the United States and Europe are present, including General Motors, Ford, Microsoft, Samsung, Walmart and Tesla.
It remained to be seen whether Xi’s latest promises would satisfy increasingly impatient trading
partners. In a speech at Davos nearly two years ago, he presented China as a beacon of globalisation, in a counterpoint to Trump. But critics say Xi is yet to put his money where his mouth is and they are tired of empty promises. Kenneth Jarrett, president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai,
China would step up efforts to stimulate imports, lower tariffs, ease customs clearance procedures, and implement harsh punishments for intellectual property infringements
Xi Jinping, president- of China
said the association welcomed the fresh promise to strengthen intellectual property protections.
But he said Xi’s latest comments came “with few specific solutions” and that the chamber wants to see the “rhetoric” match by actions.
“Now that it is the world’s secondlargest economy, China can afford to open its doors all the way,” Jarrett said. Foreign businesses complain about a range of policies that benefit local firms, requirements that foreign companies form joint ventures with Chinese partners, forced technology transfers, rampant intellectual property violations and restrictive red tape