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Xi Jinping has urged global business leaders to work together to protect supply chains at a meeting with a group of executives including Rajesh Subramaniam of FedEx, Ola Källenius of Mercedes-Benz and Georges Elhedery of HSBC.
Amid a deepening trade war with the US, the Chinese leader told the group of more than 40 business leaders, which also included Pascal Soriot of AstraZeneca, Miguel Ángel López Borrego of Thyssenkrupp and Amin Nasser of Saudi Aramco, that foreign business leaders should resist behaviours that “turn back the clock” on history.
“We hope everyone can take a broad and long-term view . . . and not blindly follow actions that disrupt the security and stability of global industrial chains and supply chains, but instead contribute more positive energy and certainty to global development,” Xi told the gathering in Beijing on Friday.
The event at the Great Hall of the People marked the second consecutive year that Xi held a carefully staged meeting with foreign chief executives in the Chinese capital. Last year’s event was held exclusively with US business leaders.
The meeting came at the conclusion of a busy week for Chinese policymakers, who are trying to strengthen relations with international business amid rising tensions with US President Donald Trump’s administration.
China’s premier annual CEO conference, the China Development Forum, was held in Beijing this week, followed by the Boao Forum for Asia in the tropical resort island of Hainan.
Beijing is seeking to promote itself as a bastion of stability in global trade in contrast to the US, where Trump has launched successive waves of tariffs on products from aluminium to cars. The president has vowed widespread, reciprocal duties on US trading partners on April 2, threatening further disruption to international trade.
“A few countries are building ‘small yards with high walls’, setting up tariff barriers, and politicising, instrumentalising, weaponising, and over-securitising economic and trade issues,” said Xi, who was accompanied by his foreign, commerce and finance ministers.
He said these actions were forcing companies “to take sides and make choices that go against economic principles”.
“This runs counter to the overarching trend of open markets,” he said.
He added that foreign enterprises, especially multinational corporations, had “considerable international influence”.
“We hope everyone will . . . resist regressive moves that turn back the clock,” Xi said. “Together, we must safeguard the stability of global industrial and supply chains.
“Decoupling and severing ties harms others without benefiting oneself; it leads nowhere.”
While Beijing is trying to present itself as a champion of globalisation, trading partners including the EU as well as the US have accused it of running huge surpluses while not doing enough to stimulate lagging domestic demand.
They have also alleged China supports its domestic companies with favourable industrial policies, deep subsidies and cheap financing. Foreign companies operating in the country have long complained of formal and informal barriers that protect the domestic market from international competitors.
Xi promised better conditions for international companies, saying products made by groups with foreign investment in China — which has plummeted in recent years — would receive equal treatment in government procurement.
“We believe that foreign-invested enterprises in China should be guaranteed national treatment, which means consistency in the application of laws and equal status and treatment,” he said.
