Chinese President Xi Jinping on Wednesday pledged to strengthen the strategic relationships with neighbouring countries by “appropriately” managing differences and enhancing supply chain ties as China's tariff war with the US escalated.
In his first public speech after US President Donald Trump’s steep global hike of tariffs, especially targeting China with 104 per cent on Chinese exports to America, Xi called for building a community with a shared future with neighbouring countries and striving to open new ground for China's neighbourhood work, state media reported.
Xi made the remarks at a central conference on work related to neighbouring countries, which was held in Beijing from Tuesday to Wednesday.
Trump’s additional 50 per cent tariff, taking the overall levies against the Chinese exports to the US to 104 per cent, kicked in on Wednesday.
China vowed to fight to the end if Trump pursued the tariff measures.
As its relations with the US became increasingly strained, China recently wound down border tensions with India and sought to improve its relations with other neighbours like Japan and South Korea, bracing for tough times under Trump’s presidency on trade and strategic fronts.
The India-China relations, which were frozen for over four years over the eastern Ladakh military standoff, showed signs of improvement after Xi met Prime Minister Narendra Modi at Kazan in Russia last October.
Since then, the two countries have held a series of high-level meetings to normalise relations.
Recently, China held trade talks with South Korea and Japan, the first economic dialogue between the three countries in five years, to discuss regional trade facilitation as the countries braced for Trump’s tariff announcement.
The trade ministers of the three countries discussed free trade agreements to promote regional and global trade.
China is also ramping up trade relations with several other countries in the neighbourhood under its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
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