China’s Xi promises better investment climate
SEATTLE: Seeking to warm bilateral ties and project a sunny climate for US business, Chinese President Xi Jinping vowed to cut restrictions on foreign investment, while his chief Internet regulator appeared to lay the groundwork for a basic agreement later this week on cyber warfare.
Xi’s busy stop on the West Coast is the first leg of a week-long trip to the United States and offers him a chance to highlight China’s cooperation with US companies before he heads to Washington, where he will contend with the full spectrum of irritants in relations, from tension in the South China Sea to human rights.
The Chinese leader started the day by publicly assuring US business leaders that he is making it easier to invest in China, and he was later quizzed in a private session about intellectual property protection, common standards and clear, transparent regulations, according to the Paulson Institute, which hosted the event.
“We are working to create
a new open economic system, push forward reform of foreign investment management and greatly reduce the restrictions on foreign investment,” Xi told the gathering of executives in Seattle, including Apple Inc Chief Executive Tim Cook and Berkshire Hathaway’s Warren Buffett.
“GM and Ford can increase investment in China,” Xi said.
A few hours after, Boeing Co announced plans for an aircraft finishing centre in China, its first outside the United States.
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To the east of Seattle, at Microsoft’s campus in Redmond, China’s top Internet regulator told US tech executives that both countries must work together on cyber security issues, including crime and espionage, addressing one of their most pressing concerns.
“We are on the same boat,” said Lu Wei, at the eighth annual meeting of the US-China Internet Industry Forum. ‘‘ The only choice we have is to cooperate.” In a closed-door session afterwards, Lu gave the impression that China and the United States were set to reach some kind of agreement on cyber warfare, banning attacks on infrastructure in peacetime, according to one person present, who asked not to be named given the privacy of the meeting.
Samm Sacks, an analyst at US-based consulting firm Eurasia Group, said that American business leaders remain chiefly concerned with cyber theft targeting corporate secrets, though any renewed cyber crime dialogue with Washington likely would be limited in scope and not deal with corporate espionage. “Overall, I do not see any meaningful progress on cyber issues or a shift in Beijing’s approach toward US tech companies in China,” Sacks said.
Xi later visited Microsoft’s campus in Seattle where he was greeted by cofounder Bill Gates, CEO Satya Nadella and other top executives. He was then led to a gathering of American and Chinese CEOs and was greeted, among others, by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who spoke to the Chinese leader in Mandarin.
The conversation, which was private, lasted about a minute. Facebook is banned in China.
Although some companies had privately spread word that the meeting with their CEOs could prove significant and last an hour or more, in fact it was little more than pleasantries and a photo op. A Microsoft spokeswoman said that Xi spoke for about six minutes and that none of the US business leaders responded.