OPEN CHINA?
‘China will not close its door to the world and will only become more ‘China and more open,’ said Chinese president Xi Jingping at a trade fair in Shanghai in late 2018.
‘Protectionism and unilateralism are rising. Multilateralism and the free-trade system are under threat,’ he warned, managing to avoid the name on everybody’s mind.
The speech, a few weeks ahead of a planned meeting between Xi and US president Donald Trump, was designed to be sweet music to the ears of free-traders.1
In contrast to a petulant Trump, launching trade wars like a toddler hurling toys out of his playpen, Xi has been sounding like the grown-up in the room – a supporter of the rules-based multilateral system epitomized by the WTO.
At the 2017 World Economic Forum in Davos, Xi had reflected: ‘There was a time when China had doubts about economic globalization and was not sure
