Vice-premier Ding Xuexiang told the forum on Sunday that “opening to the outside world is a national policy, it is a mark of modern China” and promised to improve market access for foreign companies. A number of multinational chief executives stressed the importance of creating a more level playing field if China wants to attract more foreign investment.
Maersk’s Vincent Clerc pointed out that, despite geopolitical tensions and talk of economic decoupling, China’s trade with both the United States and the European Union reached record highs in 2022. Chinese observers are hoping that a visit to Beijing by Spanish prime minister Pedro Sanchez this week and by Emmanuel Macron and Ursula von der Leyen next week signal a thaw in relations with Europe.
Joshua Ramo, a protege of Henry Kissinger who runs strategic advisory firm Sornay, noted that the Daioyutai State Guesthouse where the forum was taking place had been the venue for Kissinger’s secret visit to Beijing in 1971. Global trade accounted for just 25 per cent of global GDP that year but by 2008, globalisation had lifted that figure to almost 61 per cent of GDP.