Chinese President Xi Jingping Embarks Trip To Strengthen US-China Economic Ties
In order to propel a favorable condition for US business, President of China Xi Jinping declared on Wednesday that his country was willing to significantly lessen the constraints on foreign investment and simultaneously project an extended period of financial progression in China, irrespective of the recent slump in the economy and other wobbles.
Xi, who started off with his week-long visit to the United States of America on Tuesday engaging the business elites of Seattle through pop-culture jokes, shared his vision and possibilities of economic ties with influential and front-runners of business in Seattle. Soon after this meeting, Boeing Co, the leading manufacturer and world’s largest aerospace company, declared that it had acquired assurances and orders from China, valued at $38 billion for 300 planes.
The halt on the American West Coast is the initial phase of Xi’s visit to the United States and gives him an opportunity to put the spotlight on China-US economic cooperation ahead of his visit to Washington, where he will face the burning issues of disturbing elements in relations, ranging from unstable conditions in the South China Sea to basic human rights.
“The positive long-term trend in China’s economy will not change”, told the Chinese President in the meeting, in spite of fresh statistics that came out on Wednesday and showed that Chinese factory sector had contracted to the lowest point this month in 6-1/2 year.
Xi added that he was very well aware of dangers and trials in front of China’s economy, and he is implementing powerful and new macroeconomic measures to resolve them. China recently loosened controls over Yuan – in turn effectively devaluing the currency in order to boost exports – this created ripple effect in US economy resulting in market turmoil in the month of August.
“I believe that from a long-term perspective, China’s economic fundamentals are good”, said Xi in the gathering, which involved Chief Executive of Apple Inc Tim Cook and Warren Buffet from Berkshire Hathaway.
Xi also added,
“We are working to create a new open economic system, push forward reform of foreign investment management and greatly reduce the restrictions on foreign investment”.
And added that the essential part of reform is to reduce the scope of the existing “negative list” of foreign investment, and said, “Our positive list will be bigger, a longer list. We will continue to build an open and law-based environment”.
He further said that China will ensure safety of intellectual property.
Xi said that in return he hopes that US will loosen up its export restrictions imposed over high-tech merchandise and build a just business atmosphere for Chinese stakeholders.
Boeing Factory Tour and Meeting with Tech Leaders
After finishing his meeting with American business leaders, Xi took a trip to Everett, Washington, Boeing factory where the company manufactures aircrafts like 777 and 787 Dreamliner. Along with the declaration of order for planes, an announcement regarding a new finishing plant for 737 airliner in China was also anticipated.
On Wednesday, Xi was also supposed to visit the Microsoft campus, to attend a US-China Internet forum meeting with tech executives.
A source had confirmed meeting between CEO of Facebook Inc Mark Zuckerberg with Xi, whereas executives of Google Inc where not expected.
Facebook and Google both are basically censored in mainland China. Google withdrew its services from China five years ago after declining to continue with the self-censoring of its search results. Recently, Google CEO, Sunder Pichai, has made it clear that he intends to enter China through Google Play, the Android mobile OS app store.
Underneath the friendliness of Xi’s business conventions, grave issues lurked. A cluster of 12 Nobel Peace Prize Laureates requested the President of United States to make a public appeal in regards to the release of one of their fellow laureate, Liu Xiaobo, along with his wife Liu Xia, in the course of his summit meeting with Chinese President.
Penny Pritzker, the US Secretary of Commerce welcomed Xi on Tuesday, proposing collaboration and backing before voicing the “serious concerns” of US government and businesses regarding “the lack of a level playing field across a range of sectors”.
On the other hand, a hacking incident of private data from US government personnel came out to be worse than formerly estimated on Wednesday. As per the recent statement of the government, the hackers had managed to steal security clearance data concerning Defense Department and similar other US government personnel and slipped away with around 5.6 million fingerprint records, 4.5 million over and above previously reported.
Behind closed doors, US officials have blamed this break-in on Chinese government-sponsored hackers, though they have not issued any public statement regarding the same.
