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DAVOS: Chinese President Xi Jinping on Tuesday issued a stark warning against protectionism, as he championed globalization amid a populist backlash in the West.
He was speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, as the first Chinese president to address the annual meeting of the global elite.
“We should say ‘no’ to protectionism,” Xi told delegates at the meeting’s opening plenary session.
“Pursuing protectionism is like locking oneself in a dark room. Wind and rain may be kept outside, but so is light and air.”
While he did not explicitly target the President-elect Donald Trump in his address, much of Xi’s hour-long speech has been interpreted in light of the new US administration.
Donald Trump has previously accused China of trade policies that have cost US jobs, and threatened to slap tariffs of up to 45 percent on Chinese goods.
But Xi told the Annual Meeting in Davos: “No one will emerge as a winner in a trade war.”
The president admitted that globalization has caused issues but that it was not to blame for all the world’s ills.
These issues need to be dealt with, rather than abandoning globalization altogether, Xi said.
“(There is) no point in blaming economic globalization for the world’s problems… It is true that economic globalization has created new problems, but this is not justification to write off economic globalization altogether,” he said.
“We should adapt to, and guide economic globalization.”
Xi’s keynote address marked the beginning of the four-day Davos meeting, attended by a mixture of government leaders, business bosses, global thinkers and celebs.
It had been highly anticipated, especially ahead of the inauguration of Donald Trump as US president on Friday. Trump is not attending the WEF meeting.
Xi’s speech was described as “very encouraging” by Nariman Behravesh, chief economist at analytics firm IHS Markit.
“President Xi gave a very rigorous and articulate defense of globalization. Essentially, he said that we should not blame all the world’s problems on globalization and that the benefits outweigh the costs,” he said.
“Very importantly, he made commitments about opening China up to more imports and foreign direct investment and making sure that China’s exchange rate policy didn’t destabilize the global economy. All this is very encouraging.”
But Behravesh cautioned that much depends on whether China follows through on its promises.
“Actions speak louder than words. A lot will depend on what China does. This is a good start. This is a good set of commitments on his part. It is encouraging, but we will see what the follow through is,” he said.