Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) yesterday said that protectionism “leads nowhere” and that a trade war would have “no winners,” state media reported, as he arrived in Vietnam on the first leg of a Southeast Asia tour.
Xi is to visit Vietnam, Malaysia and Cambodia on his first overseas trip of the year as Beijing seeks to tighten regional trade ties and offset the impact of huge tariffs unleashed by US President Donald Trump.
A line of well-wishers stood outside the Vietnamese capital’s airport waving Chinese flags as Xi arrived in Hanoi for the start of a tour that Beijing says “bears major importance” for the broader region.
Photo: AFP
He said in a statement reported by Xinhua news agency soon after his arrival that he looked forward to an “in-depth exchange of views with Vietnamese leaders on issues concerning ties between the two parties and countries that have a global impact.”
Xi earlier urged the two nations to “resolutely safeguard the multilateral trading system, stable global industrial and supply chains, and an open and cooperative international environment.”
He also reiterated Beijing’s line that a “trade war and tariff war will produce no winner, and protectionism will lead nowhere” in an article published yesterday in Vietnam’s major state-run Nhan Dan newspaper.
Beijing is trying to present itself as a stable alternative to an erratic Trump, who announced — and then mostly reversed — sweeping tariffs this month that sent global markets into a tailspin.
Vietnamese Communist Party General Secretary To Lam in an article posted on the government’s news portal yesterday said that his nation “is always ready to join hands with China to make cooperation between the two countries more substantive, profound, balanced and sustainable.”
Approximately 40 cooperation documents are expected to be signed by both nations, Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister Bui Thanh Son told state media.
Vietnam was Southeast Asia’s biggest buyer of Chinese goods last year with a bill of US$161.9 billion, followed by Malaysia with Chinese imports of US$101.5 billion.
Firming up ties with Southeast Asian neighbors could also help offset the impact from a closed US, the largest single recipient of Chinese goods last year.
Xi was to be in Vietnam yesterday and today, his first trip there since December 2023.
China and Vietnam already share a “comprehensive strategic partnership,” Hanoi’s highest diplomatic status.
China claims almost all of the South China Sea as its own, but its claims are disputed by Taiwan, the Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam, Indonesia and Brunei.
The Chinese president said in his article that Beijing and Hanoi could resolve those disputes through dialogue.
“We should properly manage differences, and safeguard peace and stability in our region,” Xi wrote. “With vision, we are fully capable of properly settling maritime issues through consultation and negotiation.”
Lam in his article said that “joint efforts to control and satisfactorily resolve disagreements ... is an important stabilizing factor in the current complex and unpredictable international and regional situation.”
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