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China’s premier Li Qiang has said the country would “open its doors still wider to the world” as he warned of the risk of “fragmentation” of global supply chains amid trade tensions.
Li, Beijing’s second-highest ranking official, said China would make its technological advances available to other countries as he outlined a transition from a manufacturing power to a “mega-consumer market”.
“Economic globalisation will not be reversed; it will only carve out a new path,” Li told the World Economic Forum’s annual summer event in the northern Chinese city of Tianjin on Wednesday. “We will further integrate and connect with the global market.”
“We will not and shall not return to closed off and isolated islands,” he added.
Beijing has sought to position itself as a stabilising force for international commerce and development in the face of a full-blown trade war with Washington that has threatened to upend global supply chains.
The US and China met in London this month and struck a fragile truce to reduce their sharp escalation in tariffs. A 90-day pause however on US President Donald Trump’s “reciprocal” levies against other countries is set to expire in July, raising the prospect of further disruption to global trade.
Last week, Pan Gongsheng, governor of the People’s Bank of China, delivered an implicit critique of US dollar dominance as he advocated for a “multi-polar” currency order, with a growing role for the renminbi.
“Some countries and regions have interfered in market activity in the name of de-risking,” Li said, referring to a push by western governments to insulate their economies from China and echoing comments he made at the same forum two years ago — the first following Covid-19 pandemic closures.
The world’s “economic and trade system is becoming more diverse”, he added on Wednesday. The “global south is rapidly gaining strength”.
Li also said that “China’s innovation is open and open source”. The country’s top artificial intelligence groups DeepSeek and Alibaba have made their large language models available to developers around the world. “We are willing to share indigenous technologies,” Li added.
The WEF’s Annual Meeting of the New Champions, also known as “Summer Davos”, has in recent years offered China’s leadership a platform to project a welcoming tone to international business amid strained ties with the west, weaker economic momentum at home and a push for more foreign investment in the domestic economy.
Guests this year include former UK prime minister Sir Tony Blair and Harvard political scientist Graham Allison.
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“China’s hosting of ‘Summer Davos’ amplifies how it wants to see and be seen by the international community as the responsible global stakeholder in these increasingly volatile times,” said Han Shen Lin, China country director for The Asia Group think-tank.
A recent survey from the EU Chamber of Commerce in China showed a record number of respondents have said doing business had become more difficult in the country.
Li said it was “normal for countries to have differences and disagreements in their economic and trade relations”. But he added that China was “ready to make persistent efforts with all countries to build maximum consensus”.
“The global economy is deeply integrated; no country can sustain its prosperity in isolation from the world,” he said.
