China remains committed to a “healthy, stable and constructive” relationship with the U.S. amid still “chilly” bilateral ties, Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang said at a meeting with U.S. trade organizations and business representatives in Beijing. Qin assured his audience that China will continue to build a better business environment for foreign companies from all countries, including the U.S., and to welcome the expansion of investments in China. The meeting came as China works to attract foreign investment at a time of slower economic growth, soaring local government debt, a shrinking population, high youth unemployment and global economic and geopolitical uncertainty. Among the American attendees were Cristiano Amon, President and CEO of Qualcomm; Albert Bourla, Chairman and CEO of Pfizer; Craig Allen, President of the U.S.-China Business Council, and Ray Dalio, Founder of the world’s biggest hedge fund Bridgewater Associates. Minister Qin said that China will ensure its major policies are stable and continuous, and he added that China will open even wider to the outside world as the Chinese economy and society usher in a “strong recovery”.
All of this will benefit the American business community, Qin said, even though “regrettably, the current China-U.S. relationship remains as chilly in the early spring.” Qin said that China’s stance on bilateral relations has not changed. “China has always advocated for mutual respect, peaceful coexistence, and win-win cooperation between China and the U.S.” He called on Washington to stop trying to contain China and to work with China to return the world’s two largest economies, which have been enmeshed in an array of issues, to a healthy track. Earlier this month, Chinese President Xi Jinping directly accused the U.S. of leading other Western nations to suppress China’s development. During the meeting with Qin, the U.S. business representatives said that “the U.S. and China are interdependent, and their relationship is currently at a critical juncture”, according to the Chinese readout. They told Chinese officials that the American business community “is committed to preventing the two countries from falling into a cycle of mutual isolation and conflict”. To avoid such a conflict, the U.S. delegation recommended greater face-to-face contact, more flights between the two countries, and deeper economic, trade and investment cooperation.
The U.S. executives were in Beijing to attend the China Development Forum, an annual government-backed conference to promote policy exchange with foreign business communities. Apple CEO Tim Cook, in remarks at the high-profile forum, gave a show of support for China as a market and manufacturing base amid a fierce hi-tech war between the two powers. “Apple and China grew together,” Cook said. “This has been a symbiotic kind of relationship that I think we both enjoyed,” he said.
Vice Foreign Minister Xie Feng, who is expected to be Beijing’s next Ambassador to Washington, met with William Zarit, Senior Counsellor at the Cohen Group, and expressed the hope that the company will “make more contributions to the steady development of China-U.S. relations”. But global investors were also rattled by reports that the Chinese offices of New York-based Mintz Group, a due diligence firm, were raided and its Chinese staff detained. Washington is also threatening to ban the Chinese video app TikTok, to impose restrictions on exports to China of high-end semiconductors and chip-making equipment, to step up military activity in the Indo-Pacific region, and to limit U.S. investment in Chinese tech ventures.
Allen of the Business Council and Bourla of Pfizer also met Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao, who said China will “unswervingly” expand opening-up, provide better services and environments for foreign firms and strive to create stable expectations for the cooperation between enterprises of the two countries. Allen and representatives of U.S.-funded enterprises said “they will continue their commitment to long-term development in China”. Bourla and Wang exchanged views on Pfizer’s investments and operations in China and cooperation between the two countries’ pharmaceutical industries.
Foreign direct investment in China rose 1% from a year earlier in the January-February period to USD39.7 billion after an 8% growth in 2022 to USD189.1 billion, according to China’s Commerce Ministry. But it fell to the lowest level in 18 years during the second half of last year, warned Shen Jianguang, Chief Economist at JD Digits. “In the medium and long term, the relocation of industrial chains has become a major trend under great power competition. Western countries have a clear strategy of ‘de-Sinicization’ in their industrial chains,” he wrote in an article published by the Financial Times.
Han Wenxiu, Deputy Director of the General Office of the Central Financial and Economic Affairs Commission, said that China is open to investment from all over the world, and is offering foreign businesses the opportunity to catch “big fish” if they “deeply engage” in the domestic market. He told the China Development Forum that the country would continue to expand market access and promote the “institutional opening up” of rules, regulations and standards. “We welcome companies from all over the world to invest in China, and we expect foreign investors to develop a long-term vision and be deeply engaged in the Chinese market, so they can cast a long line to catch a big fish,” Han said, according to Chinese media outlet Caixin.
Han added that China was a hotspot for overseas investors, attracting USD189 billion in foreign capital last year compared with USD144 billion in 2020 – a figure he described as the best example of foreign investors’ confidence in the country. But he warned that it had to overcome the economic impact of efforts by unnamed external forces to contain and suppress China and the country’s aging population. He said China will continue to nurture talent, encourage innovation and open up to enhance the economy’s momentum. Han concluded that “the Chinese economy is a powerful propeller and stable anchor for the recovery of the world economy,” the South China Morning Post reports.
