Xi Jinping, free trader? | The New York sun

Xi Jinping, committed free trader? This is the duck that the leader of the Chinese party is trying to pass on to the West. warning German Chancellor Scholz is wary of the rise of protectionism. Beijing's remarks come amid growing unease in America and Europe over a looming wave of so-called green exports from China. Beijing's large exports and unbridled industrial policy aim to ignite the Chinese economy at the expense of the West.

Xi's call to examine production capacity issues objectively follows Secretary of State Yellens handbag noise during his recent visit to Beijing. There, she told the Mandarins that Washington would not accept new industries being decimated by Chinese imports, as Reuters puts it. Ms. Yellen lamented the so-called China Shock that has devastated the industrial heartland of the Americas. President Biden and I will no longer accept this reality, she said.

All Ms. Yellen needed was a lock of orange hair. She failed, Reuters notes, to threaten new tariffs or other trade measures should China move forward, as it likely will, with state support for electric vehicles, batteries, solar panels and other green energy products. The Secretary of State's words constitute yet another empty threat from the Biden administration which, as these columns note, has flaunted its weakness with Dont Diplomacy.

Along the same lines, Mr. Biden is warning Mr. Xi against helping Russia in its invasion of Ukraine, without taking any action to stop it. Mr. Biden also warns, as Beijing steps up pressure on the archipelago over navigation rights in the South China Sea, that the United States' commitment to defending the Philippines is ironclad. Moreover, Mr. Biden affirms that our support for Israel is also ironclad, even if it prevents our ally from retaliation against Iran.

The impression this creates in Beijing, not to mention Moscow, Tehran and Pyongyang, is that Mr. Biden is, as they say, all hats and no cattle. It's no wonder, then, that Mr. Xi has the gall to present himself as a steward of the global free trade system that America and Europe built in the decades after World War II. The very system, we might add, that communist China, since its entry into the World Trade Organization, has done so much to undermine.

Chinese exports, Xi believes, have enriched global supply and eased global inflationary pressure. He adds that these green exports of electric cars, solar panels, lithium batteries, etc. contribute to the global response to climate change and the green, low-carbon transformation. He fails to mention that these cheap green exports are the result of the mobilization of state industry, as well as huge subsidies, in defiance of the principles of free trade and sustainable economic policy, as writes a Wall Street Journal editorial. observed.

Beijing's export spree has been in the works for months, the Financial Times says, as a way for the regime to offset the real estate slowdown by investing in manufacturing. This effort appears to be paying off, if current growth figures are any indication, as China's gross domestic product grew 5.3% in the first quarter of the year. Yet as China recovers from its self-inflicted housing bubble, Western industry is paying the price.

The influx of cheap exports, writes the FT, is already triggering a wave of anti-subsidy investigations into Chinese goods in the European Union, which is as concerned as Ms Yellen about Beijing's supply shock. Mr. Scholz lamented that China's unilateral economic policy decisions are creating great structural difficulties for businesses in Germany and Europe. Premier Li Qiang responded by touting survival of the fittest.

China's trade policies, like its aggressive military posture toward its neighbors, are hardly those of a responsible member of the global community. They point out the mistake made by America and the West when they admitted China to the WTO with loopholes that allowed Beijing to tilt the global rules of the game when it comes to trade. The question now is how, or if, the West can extricate itself from its dysfunctional trade relationship with China before it is too late.

This article has been updated from Bulldog to include a reference to the Wall Street Journal editorial on Chinese economic growth.