China Pleads: Scrap Economic Barriers To Trade

China’s Premier Li Qiang warned governments that attempts to politicize their economies will only fragment the world as the US and Europe “de-risk” supply chains from the Asian nation, Yihui Xie and James Mayger reported for Bloomberg News.

Photo Insert: The US and European allies are seeking to reduce their supply chain reliance on China in order to “de-risk” their economies, an approach that Beijing has criticized as a form of decoupling that it says would be harmful to growth and investment.

“The invisible barriers put up by some people in recent years are becoming widespread and pushing the world into fragmentation and even confrontation,” China’s No. 2 official said Tuesday at the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting of the New Champions in Tianjin, a coastal city close to Beijing in northern China.

“We should oppose the politicization of economic issues and work together to keep global industrial and supply chains stable, smooth and secure,” he added at the first in-person gathering of the forum since 2019 following the end of COVID restrictions.

The event is often described as the “Summer Davos.”

The Chinese premier’s comments come as the Biden administration pushes forward with an executive order that would regulate and potentially cut off certain US investments in China.

The US and European allies are seeking to reduce their supply chain reliance on China in order to “de-risk” their economies, an approach that Beijing has criticized as a form of decoupling that it says would be harmful to growth and investment.

During his trip last week, Li urged German CEOs to take the lead on risk-proofing their supply chains, saying they were better placed to do so than their governments.

Yet, China has been politicizing its trade and investments, banning imports from South Korea, Vietnam, and the Philippines whenever Beijing is displeased with their pronouncements and when the latter two nations reassert their claims to maritime features in the South China Sea (SCS) that China illegally occupied.

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