Chinese dictator Xi Jinping met with a group of visiting U.S. business leaders in Beijing on Wednesday, making a bid to lure much-needed foreign investment back into China’s flagging economy.that Xi’s presence at the meeting was unusual because gatherings of foreign executives at the end of the annual China Development Forum are usually handled by the Chinese Communist Party’s number two man, the premier.
RFA observed that foreign investment in China declined by eight percent in 2024, driven by the Chinese economy slipping to the slowest growth in almost 25 years, fear of Xi’s “raids on consultancies and due diligence firms,” a new authoritarian “anti-espionage law,” lingering anxiety over the Wuhan coronavirus disaster, political tensions between Beijing and Western governments, and a growing movement among international corporations to “de-risk” by relying less heavily on China for...
Chinese state media portrayed Xi listening attentively to all of their concerns and responding with a promise that “China’s reforms will not pause, the opening will not stop.” Xi’s pledges of reform and openness were accompanied by plenty of blame-shifting and thinly veiled hints of what China expects in return for rolling out the red carpet for American investors. He blamed most of the difficulties in bilateral relationships on the United States, patronizingly instructing it to “actively explore the right way to get along.” His sudden enthusiasm for playing by “market rules” was an effort to lay the groundwork for China objecting to U.S.