China's Xi Jinping Warns There Are 'No Winners' In A Tariff War As He Visits Southeast Asia | rssama.com

HANOI, Vietnam (AP) — China’s leader Xi Jinping said nary 1 wins successful a waste and acquisition warfare arsenic he kicked disconnected a negotiated circuit of Southeast Asia connected Monday, presenting China arsenic a unit for stableness successful opposition pinch U.S. President Donald Trump’s latest tariffs moves.

Although Trump has paused immoderate tariffs, he has kept successful spot 145% duties connected China, nan world’s second-largest economy.

“There are nary winners successful a waste and acquisition war, aliases a tariff war,” Xi wrote successful an editorial jointly published successful Vietnamese and Chinese charismatic media. “Our 2 countries should resolutely safeguard nan multilateral trading system, unchangeable world business and proviso chains, and unfastened and cooperative world environment.”

Xi’s sojourn lets China show Southeast Asia it is simply a “responsible superpower successful nan measurement that contrasts pinch nan measurement nan U.S. nether President Donald Trump presents to nan full world,” said Nguyen Khac Giang, a visiting chap astatine Singapore’s ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute.

Xi was greeted connected nan tarmac by Vietnam’s President Luong Cuong astatine nan commencement of his two-day visit, a people of grant not often fixed to visitors, said Nguyen Thanh Trung, a professor of Vietnamese studies astatine Fulbright University Vietnam. Students of a drum creation group performed arsenic women waved nan reddish and yellowish Chinese and Communist Party flags.

While Xi’s travel apt was planned earlier, it has go important because of nan tariff conflict between China and nan U.S. The sojourn offers a way for Beijing to statement up its alliances and find solutions for nan precocious waste and acquisition obstruction that nan U.S. has imposed connected Chinese exports.

In Hanoi, Xi met pinch Vietnam’s Communist Party General Secretary To Lam, his counterpart. “In nan look of turmoil and disruption successful nan existent world context, China and Vietnam’s committedness to serene development, and deepening of relationship and practice and has brought nan world valuable stableness and certainty,” he said.

He besides met pinch Vietnam’s Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh. The 2 sides signed a bid of memorandums, whose specifications were not made public. Nhan Dan, nan charismatic mouthpiece of Vietnam’s Communist Party, said that China and Vietnam will velocity up a $8 cardinal railway task connecting nan 2 countries successful a woody that was approved successful February.

Xi’s sojourn sends a connection to nan region

The timing of nan sojourn sends a “strong governmental connection that Southeast Asia is important to China,” said Huong Le-Thu of nan International Crisis Group deliberation tank. She said that fixed nan severity of Trump’s tariffs and contempt nan 90-day pause, Southeast Asian nations were anxious that nan tariffs, if implemented, could complicate their development.

Vietnam is knowledgeable astatine balancing its relations pinch nan U.S and China. It is tally nether a communist, one-party strategy for illustration China but has had a beardown narration pinch nan U.S.

In 2023, it was nan only state that received some U.S. President Joe Biden and China’s Xi Jinping. That twelvemonth it besides upgraded nan U.S. to its highest negotiated level, nan aforesaid arsenic China and Russia.

Vietnam was 1 of nan biggest beneficiaries of countries trying to decouple their proviso chains from China, arsenic businesses moved here. China is its biggest trading partner, and China-Vietnam waste and acquisition surged 14.6% year-on-year successful 2024, according to Chinese authorities media.

That waste and acquisition narration goes some ways.

“The travel to Vietnam, Malaysia, and Cambodia is each astir really China tin really insulate itself against nan from Trump,” said Nguyen Khac Giang, an expert astatine Singapore’s ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute, pointing retired that since Xi became nan president successful 2013, he has only visited Vietnam twice.

But nan intensification of nan waste and acquisition warfare has put Vietnam successful a “very precarious situation” fixed nan belief successful nan U.S. that Vietnam is serving arsenic a backdoor for Chinese goods, said Giang. Vietnam had been deed pinch 46% tariffs nether Trump’s bid earlier nan 90-day pause.

China and Vietnam person existent semipermanent differences, including territorial disputes successful nan South China Sea, wherever Vietnam has faced disconnected pinch China’s seashore defender but does not often publicize nan confrontations.

After Vietnam, Xi is expected to spell to Malaysia adjacent and past Cambodia.

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Wu reported from Bangkok. AP video journalist Hau Dinh contributed to this report.