Chinese President Xi Jinping said on Monday that protectionism “leads nowhere” and that a trade war would have “no winners,” state media said, as he was due to kick off a tour of Southeast Asia with a visit to Vietnam.
Xi’s trip to southeast Asia is likely to cast China as a trustful partner, contrasting itself with Washington, which launched a global trade war.
The Chinese President’s first overseas trip of the year will see him visit Vietnam, Malaysia and Cambodia where he will meet his three Southeast Asian counterparts, the country’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
Writing in an article published Monday in Vietnam's major Nhan Dan newspaper, Xi urged the two countries to “resolutely safeguard the multilateral trading system, stable global industrial and supply chains, and open and cooperative international environment,” Beijing's Xinhua News Agency said.
He also reiterated Beijing's line that a “trade war and tariff war will produce no winner, and protectionism will lead nowhere,” the agency added.
Xi’s visit comes at a time when the Asian giant is trying to present itself as a stable alternative to the US, which announced sweeping tariffs this month that sent global markets into a tailspin.
Xi will be in Vietnam on Monday and Tuesday, his first trip there since December 2023.
The two countries have close economic ties, but Hanoi is concerned about Beijing’s increasing assertiveness in the contested South China Sea.
China claims almost all of the South China Sea as its own, but this is disputed by the Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam, Indonesia and Brunei.
The Chinese leader in his Monday article insisted Beijing and Hanoi could resolve those disputes through dialogue.
“We should properly manage differences and safeguard peace and stability in our region,” Xi wrote, according to Xinhua.
“With vision, we are fully capable of properly settling maritime issues through consultation and negotiation,” he said.
