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China said it was ready for “unexpected shocks”, before US President Donald Trump imposing higher prices on the second world economy.
Prime Minister Li Qiang, head of the Chinese economy under chief Xi Jinping, told Beijing on Sunday, foreign business leaders told Beijing that uncertainty and instability increased, but China would choose the “good path” of globalization and multilateralism.
“We have preparations for possible unexpected shocks, which of course come mainly from external sources,” said Li.
And in a barely veiled blow that Beijing considers Western protectionism, Li urged the participants in the China Development Forum to be “firm defenders” of globalization and to “resist unilateralism”.
The United States is expected to impose additional imports on imports from China on April 2, when it reveals the “reciprocal prices” to the countries of the world.
Since its entry into office, Trump has already slapped 20% prices on goods from China, in a move, the White House dit is designed to put pressure on Beijing to repress stronger against companies that make the ingredients of fentanyl, a sometimes fatal synthetic opioid that has triggered a drug use epidemic in the United States.
The edifying tone of the Chinese first comes while Beijing is trying to improve the feeling of consumers and investors, while preparing potential reprisal measures against future American prices and sanctions.
While Xi’s administration was taken over by Trump’s electoral victory in 2016, Beijing is now armed with a quiver of potential countermeasures for pressure from the United States. They include reducing American access to supply chains for minerals and strategic resources.
In the midst of the calls of economists so that Beijing is more daring in the fight against economic growth of the slowdown, the Xi government pivots more investment in advanced technologies and manufacturing, partly in steel itself for a more hostile geopolitical environment.
There have been very few high-level talks between the United States and China since Trump took office, except a telephone call between the president and President Xi Jinping.
Trump last week said Xi would come to the United States in the “not too distant future”, but people familiar with conversations in Washington and Beijing said there had been no discussion on Xi’s trip to America.
Later Sunday, Li Meeting Steve Daines, a Republican senator from Montana who is very close to Trump. Daines, who previously worked in China for business, met the Deputy Prime Minister He Lifeng on Saturday during a rare meeting between a senior American legislator and a senior Chinese official.
The Daines office said that he had used his meeting with him to repeat Trump’s call to China to stop the flow of chemicals used to make fentanyl. He added that the senator had “expressed hope that new high-level talks between the United States and China will take place in the near future”.
Earlier this month, the Council of State, the Chinese cabinet, published a new white paper describing Beijing’s “rigorous control” on fentanyl substances and precursor chemicals. The state media also pushed the pressure from Washington, saying that the United States had “transferred the blame” for its drug problem “rather than taking responsibility itself”.
Additional Joe Leahy report in Beijing
