Chinese President Xi Jinping met Wednesday in Beijing with U.S. CEOs. According to Chinese state media Xinhua, Xi told the CEOs China’s economy can’t be separated from international cooperation and U.S.-China relations will improve if there’s mutual respect. Photo by Huang Jingwen/Xinhua/EPA-EFE
Chinese President Xi Jinping Wednesday met with several U.S. CEOs and academics in Beijing in what appeared to be an effort reassure foreign investors amid global Chinese-U.S. tensions.
According to Chinese state media, Xi told the CEOs that a “healthy and sustainable” Chinese economy can’t “be separated from international cooperation.” Advertisement
Roughly one hundred global CEOs, including more than 30 U.S. executives, attended this week’s China Development Forum.
Among the U.S. business executives in attendance were FedEx President Rajesh Subramaniam, Blackstone founder Stephen Schwarzman, Qualcomm President and CEO Cristiano Amon and Bloomberg Chair Mark Carney.
“The two countries’ respective success is an opportunity for each other. As long as both sides see each other as partners and show mutual respect, coexist in peace and cooperate for win-win results, China-U.S. relations will get better,” Xi told representatives of the U.S. business, strategic and academic communities the state-run Xinhua News Agency reported.
A U.S. Chamber of Commerce Report in February found among the top concerns of U.S. businesses in China were the relations between China and the United States, along with China’s regulatory environment and business costs. Advertisement
China has seen a decline in foreign investments in recent months as several factors have shaken investor confidence in the Chinese economy. Those factors include slower growth, regulatory tightening and national security legislation along with U.S.-China tensions over Taiwan and disputes in the South China Sea.
Xinhua reported that Xi told U.S. business leaders China is implementing major steps for “comprehensively deepening reform, and steadily fostering a market-oriented, law-based and world-class business environment” that will create development space for U.S. as well as other foreign businesses.
While acknowledging serious challenges in the U.S.-China relationship, Xi pointed to an understanding he said was reached with U.S. President Joe Biden last year in San Francisco on the need to stabilize and improve bilateral relations.
In a post on X, Biden described the meeting as “some of the most constructive and productive discussions we’ve had.”
In a news conference after their summit Biden said “restarting cooperation” was one of three accomplishments from that meeting.
