Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng welcomes Apple CEO Tim Cook to the China Development Forum in Beijing on Sunday. Apple was one of seven major U.S. international corporations that attended the two-day conference. Photo by Liu Bin/XINHUA/EPA-EFE
March 24 (UPI) — China reassured executives from American and European firms, including Apple, Qualcomm, Mastercard, Pfizer and AstraZeneca, that the world’s second-largest economy is open for business amid a looming tariffs threat to its export-dependent economy.
Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng told CEOs Tim Cook, Qualcomm’s Cristiano Amon and Pascal Soriot of AstraZeneca, along with U.S. Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., attending a two-day conference in Beijing on Sunday that the country was looking for more foreign investment from international companies as it continues to open its economy.
“China remains committed to expanding high-level opening-up of its market, improving the business environment and welcoming more multinational companies to deepen their investment in China,” said He, who stressed that China especially wanted to build deeper economic and trade relationships with United States and other multinational firms.
Overseas investment into China has been hit as its economic expansion transitions to more normal levels from the stratospheric gross domestic product growth seen in the two decades before the financial crisis amid a failure to get Chinese consumers to open their pocketbooks and a massive real estate bubble that burst in 2023.
Earlier, at the opening of the China Development Forum, Premier Li Qiang urged countries not to succumb to “growing economic fragmentation,” open their markets instead, and called on business leaders to be “staunch defenders and promoters of globalization.”
Trade relations with the United States have been hit hard after President Donald Trump doubled tariffs on Chinese imports to 20% on March 4 in an effort to redress what he believes is the deeply unfair issue of a decades-old trade deficit that hit $295.4 billion in 2024, according to U.S. Census Bureau figures.
China retaliated earlier this month with tariffs of between 10% and 15% on 740 categories of U.S. goods, mainly farm products. The White House is expected to unveil “reciprocal tariffs” on numerous trading partners, with next month’s move — designed to bring manufacturing back to America — having the potential to push the tariffs on China even higher.
Li said that while China was prepared for economic shocks that came out of the blue, he cautioned that “decoupling and breaking supply chains would only deepen crises.”
He added that China was committed to making it easier for foreign investors to access a number of different sectors, calling for “win-win” U.S.-China cooperation given the “extensive common interests and broad space of cooperation” the two countries shared.
“If the world returns to the law of the jungle, it will be a step backward in history and a tragedy for humanity. “We have prepared for possible unexpected shocks, which, of course, mainly come from external sources. Where necessary, the Chinese government will introduce new policies to ensure the smooth operation of the Chinese economy,” Li said.
Daines, a close confidante of Trump, met with Li on Sunday for talks he described as a “first step” toward setting up a meeting between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping.
In a post on his account on X, Daines thanked Li for meeting with the CEOs of seven big U.S. companies and hearing how committed they were to their decades-long operations in China, but also about the current challenges they faced.
Daines also conveyed a message from Trump reiterating his call for Beijing to take decisive steps to “stop the flow of fentanyl precursors and end their devastating impact on the American people.”
