China's Xi urges foreign firms to resist ‘acts that turn back the wheel of history'
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His meeting was Beijing's latest salvo in its charm offensive aimed at bringing more foreign operations – and economy-driving cash – back to China, and it also represented Beijing's pushback against external forces weighing on the economy.
Xi unloaded on unnamed 'individual countries' for 'politicising, instrumentalising, weaponising and pan-securitising economic and trade issues' through tariff barriers and forcing companies to 'take sides and make decisions that violate economic laws', as seen in a live YouTube broadcast of the meeting by a Taiwanese media group CTi.
'I hope you can respect market laws, abide by market rules, make independent and self-reliant business decisions, and jointly promote the building of an open and stable world economic order,' he said.
Xi also said that 'the nature of China-US economic and trade relations is mutually beneficial and win-win, and economic and trade frictions should be properly resolved through equal dialogue and negotiations'.
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And he called on multinational companies to 'speak out rationally and take pragmatic actions' to resist 'acts that turn back the wheel of history', including unilateralism and protectionism.
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