“Pursuing protectionism is just like locking oneself in a dark room.” China President Xi Jinping
Interesting how major business news media have just interpreted this emerging Chinese global economic philosophy in contrast to the U.S.”America First” policies since January 20th:
Bloomberg: “President Xi Jinping laid the framework for Chinese-style globalization… the ‘Belt and Road Initiative’ [mainly infrastructure] as a ‘project of the century, a force for peace in a world fraught with challenges … countries should uphold and grow an open world economy’… [his] speech built on an image as a champion of global free trade that he’s sought to hone since President Donald Trump’s election …”
The Wall Street Journal : ” On his first workday in the Oval Office, President Trump killed the Trans-Pacific Partnership. He will probably spend the rest of his term trying to revolve parts of it … President Trump says he favors bilateral deals because he believes the U.S. can use its economic power to press smaller nations to make concessions … But the opposite is often true … a U.S. International Trade Commission report last year offered a different route. It said multilateral deals that focus on specific industries or issues — zero tariffs on steel or information technology, for instance – have had much bigger economic payoff than bilateral deals.”
And more broadly, this analysis from The New York Times: “Mr. Xi is aiming to use China’s wealth and industrial know-how to create a new kind of globalization that will dispense with the rules of aging Western-dominated institutions. The goal is to refashion the global economic order, drawing countries and companies more tightly into the Chinese orbit.
“Mr. Xi is rolling out a more audacious version of the Marshall Plan, America’s postwar reconstruction effort. Back then, The United States extended vast amounts of aid to secure alliances in Europe. China is deploying hundreds of billons of dollars of state-backed loans in the hope of winning friends around the world … Mr. Xi’s plan stands in stark contrast to President Trump and his “America First” mantra. The Trump Administration walked way from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the American-led trade pact that was envisioned as a buttress against China’s growth”
Let historians note and record this reversal of national fortunes and how the world now turns.