China's Xi warns against 'going back in history' as Trump tariffs loom

Bloomberg News

  Chinese President Xi Jinping warned against any efforts to unwind globalization in his first major remarks since Donald Trump won the US presidential election after threatening to impose tariffs as high as 60% on the world’s second-biggest economy. 

“Blocking economic cooperation under various excuses and dividing an interdependent world is going back in history,” according to a speech written by Xi that was delivered on Friday by Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao at the APEC CEO summit in Lima, Peru. 

“The world has entered a new period of turbulence and change,” Xi added in the remarks. “Unilateralism and protectionism is spreading, the fragmentation of the world economy is intensifying. Economic globalization is faced with severe challenges.”

The Chinese leader is seeking to portray himself as a champion of economic globalization while attending the APEC and Group of 20 summits in South America this week, a strategy he also deployed during Trump’s first term in office. The US president-elect’s tariff threats risk derailing China’s fragile recovery. 

Xi expressed “full confidence” in meeting China’s 2024 growth target of around 5% after data for October showed the economy began to rebound after he rolled out stimulus measures. Consumption growth nearly caught up to factory output, a positive for an economy struggling with a property downturn, weak demand and falling prices. 

Xi called for emerging nations in the so-called Global South to have a greater voice in world affairs, with all countries enjoying equitable rights and opportunities in development. 

“We need to correctly guide the development of economic globalization, not to follow the old path of letting a few countries waging hegemony,” Xi said in the speech. “We need to push economic globalization to unleash more positive effects and enter a new stage that is more dynamic, more inclusive and more sustainable.” 

Xi is set to meet Joe Biden on Saturday for the last sit-down meeting between the two before Trump takes office. The relationship has stabilized over the past year, with the two nations holding regular high-level meetings after tensions surged after former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan and the US shot down an alleged Chinese spy balloon.   

Trump has picked long-time China critics for key posts, including Marco Rubio as secretary of state and Mike Waltz as national security adviser.