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SHANGHAI – In the face of rising US tariffs that could slow China's already weak economy, President Xi Jinping is pleading to the rest of the world to argue that China can be a positive force in world trade.
The challenge will be to convince the world that he really thinks it.
Xi, the country's top leader, launched a six-day exhibition on Monday to introduce China as a major buyer of foreign products. He praised China's appetite for what the rest of the world is doing, and reiterated promises that Beijing would lower import tariffs and improve IP protection for this to happen.
"The opening has become a trademark of China," Xi said. "China has grown to embrace the world, and the world has also benefited from its openness."
"The door of China will never be closed," he added. "It will only open wider and wider."
Xi's import exposure is expected to bring 150,000 Chinese buyers to Shanghai this week in a large exhibition center with five times the exhibition space at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in New York City. find out about imports from companies in 130 countries. It was intended to show that China offers the world more than its vast manufacturing sector, which has flooded the world with goods and prompted US and other leaders to care about their own domestic industries.
China's challenge was also exposed, particularly as to who jumped the test. Despite months of energetic efforts by China to persuade foreign leaders to participate, only a dozen presidents and prime ministers appeared on Monday morning. Many leaders from countries like Kenya and Laos have borrowed heavily from Beijing under Xi's Belt and Road Initiative, which lends funds to infrastructure projects in Asia, Europe and Asia. East and East Africa.
Leaders of major trading nations such as Germany, Britain, South Korea and Japan were particularly absent. The United States did not send an official delegation at all.
Even those present had a discordant note. Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta said Monday that his country's trade with China has increased eightfold over the last decade. "This trade, however, was heavily skewed in favor of China," he said.
Chinese imports have already risen sharply. Christine Lagarde, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, said in a brief speech at the opening ceremony of the show that China's widely measured trade deficit had collapsed in recent years as part of the economic production. But most of this deficit is shrinking because China imports commodities and oil prices in particular rose last year.
Even as it sought a trade deal with Washington, Beijing has increasingly tried to appeal to the rest of the world, both to gain political support in the conflict with the United States and to ensure that China has more places to sell its products. Illustrating this effort, Mr. Xi recently met Shinzo Abe, Japan's prime minister, in a move seen as a sign that President Trump's tough trade stance against Japan and China could bring the two regional rivals closer together.
Governments in Europe and East Asia have increasingly come to grips with the trade war between Washington and Beijing. Trump is deeply unpopular with the public in many countries, particularly in Western Europe, which politically complicates the task of local leaders who support him in the trade dispute.
But many European and Asian leaders have complaints similar to those of Mr Trump. They say China discriminates against foreign companies doing business here and unfairly supports local businesses. Some have started preferring to adopt an equally aggressive stance against China.
Adam Dunnett, Secretary General of the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China, said that in recent months, some European companies had begun to favor a harder position in the US. They want restrictions on Chinese exports to Europe, unless Beijing gives European companies the same access to its markets as the one that Europe has long been offering to Chinese companies.
"It's a fundamental change," he said. "The fact that our members speak in this way is a real problem."
Mr. Dunnett refused to identify the companies and added that the chamber of commerce had not changed his own position. The chamber has long called for greater openness of Chinese markets without approving the threat of tariffs or other measures on Chinese exports to Europe.
Some European business leaders have begun to echo American complaints that China was admitted to the World Trade Organization in 2001 without enough rules to force it to become a member of the World Trade Organization. more a market economy. This leaves a lot of room for maneuver in Beijing to determine who wins and who loses – and in many sectors, foreign firms tend to be the losers.
"We have decided to open the doors of China, probably in a rather naive way," said Patrick Pouyanné, chairman and CEO of Total, the French energy giant.
The change in corporate attitudes coincided with a change in Trump administration's policy in recent months aimed at rallying other countries to oppose China's trade policy and to to move away from unilateralism.
However, Robert E. Lighthizer, US Trade Representative, has focused in recent months on China while tackling the barriers of European and Asian countries and seeking bilateral free trade agreements. with a growing number of them.
The trade ministers of the European Union, the United States and Japan then issued a joint statement in late September denouncing the forced transfers of technology, industrial subsidies and government-backed efforts to transform state-owned enterprises. in national champions. The statement clearly refers to China, although it was not mentioned by name.
China has sought to intensify its efforts to open more. Xi said Monday that China has opened more sectors to foreign investment this year. Large companies such as the German chemicals giant B.A.S.F. and the oil and gas company Exxon Mobil have taken the opportunity to rush and sign agreements in recent months. Echoing one of the main concerns of foreign companies, he also said that China would strengthen the protection of intellectual property so that companies worry less about theft and imitations.
China "will put in place a comprehensive punitive system to dramatically increase the cost to the violators," Xi said on Monday, without providing any timetable or details.
That does not mean that the world is on the side of the United States. US trading partners continue to warn that Trump's unilateral moves to impose tariffs and trade deals could upset the global economic order. This is disturbing the trading partners of the United States, especially the measures taken by the United States that are not part of the World Trade Organization, the global agreement that sets many of the rules of world trade.
"What worries us is this one-sided approach," said Valdis Dombrovskis, vice president of the European Commission in charge of the euro and social dialogue, during a recent interview. "We believe that trade should be dealt with multilaterally."
