China’s Mr. Xi met with the leaders of Japan and Canada and cast China as a champion of free trade amid high U.S. tariffs.
Chinese President Xi Jinping’s call for efforts to promote economic globalization and multilateralism at the annual Economic Regional Forum was harshly ignored by US President Donald Trump.
After President Trump left the country the day before after reaching an agreement to ease the escalating trade war with China, President Xi took center stage at the two-day Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit that began in Gyeongju, South Korea, on Friday, meeting with various leaders.
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“The more turbulent the times, the more we must cooperate,” President Xi said at the opening press conference. “The world is undergoing a period of rapid change, and the international situation is becoming increasingly complex and unstable.”
China’s leaders have positioned their country as a defender of the free trade system, which observers say is threatened by President Trump’s tariff hikes and “America First” policies.
President Xi called for maintaining supply chain stability, in contrast to US efforts to decouple supply chains from China, and expressed a desire to work with other countries to expand cooperation in green industry and clean energy.
China’s exports of solar panels, electric vehicles and other green technologies have been criticized for creating oversupply and undermining domestic industries in destination countries.
The US president left the country ahead of the summit after reaching several agreements with Xi aimed at easing the escalating trade war. Trump said Thursday’s meeting with Xi was a great success, with Beijing agreeing to allow exports of rare earth elements and begin purchasing U.S. soybeans in exchange for lower tariffs.
The US president’s decision to skip APEC, a forum representing nearly 40 percent of the world’s population and more than half of the world’s trade in goods, is consistent with his well-known disdain for large multilateral forums traditionally used to address huge global problems, with a preference for spectacular one-on-one meetings that generate blanket media coverage.
Al Jazeera’s Jack Burton, reporting from Gyeongju, said Xi is “filling the void left by President Trump.”
President Xi, who is on his first visit to South Korea in 11 years, met with Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi on Friday on the sidelines of the summit. In their brief opening remarks, the two leaders stated that they aim to advance relations.
According to China’s state-run Xinhua News Agency, President Xi said he was ready to maintain communication with Gao Shi in order to jointly move China-Japan relations on the right track.
Barton said his meeting with Japan’s Takaichi would “set the tone for diplomacy for the foreseeable future.” Chinese media has described Japan’s prime minister as a far-right nationalist who has visited the controversial Yasukuni Shrine.
The site is dedicated to the 2.5 million Japanese who died in the war that began in the 19th century and has become a political lightning rod in East Asia. Those honored include World War II leaders who were convicted as “Class A” war criminals, some of whom committed atrocities under the banner of Imperial Japan in China in the 20th century.
“South Korea and China share some historical issues with Japan,” Burton said. “They’re essentially saying we’re going to put legacy issues on one side and diplomacy on the other, so there’s room for a positive outcome.”
Mr. Xi is scheduled to meet with South Korean President Lee Jae-myung on Saturday to discuss denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.
The Chinese leader also met with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney on Friday to discuss trade. In the first official meeting between the two leaders since 2017, Carney accepted President Xi’s invitation to visit China.
The Canadian leader pointed to “constructive and pragmatic dialogue” as a path to addressing “current issues,” citing dialogue as a way to “help build a more sustainable and inclusive international system.”
Leaders and other representatives from 21 countries in Asia and the Pacific Rim are attending the APEC meeting to discuss ways to foster economic cooperation and address common challenges.
The APEC region faces a variety of challenges, including strategic competition between the United States and China, supply chain vulnerabilities, an aging population, and the impact of AI on employment.
South Korean officials said they were contacting other countries to ask all 21 member countries to adopt a joint statement at the end of the summit, to avoid a repeat of the failure to issue a joint statement in Papua New Guinea in 2018 due to trade tensions between the United States and China.
South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Hyun said last week that APEC countries were unlikely to issue a joint statement strongly supporting free trade, citing differences in their positions.
Al Jazeera’s Barton said the result could be a “watered down version”.
“The question is: Can APEC survive this era of US-China tensions?” he added.
