SHANGHAI, November 5 -- Chinese President Xi Jinping pledged on Monday to boost the nation's total imports to more than US$40 trillion in the next 15 years, while warning that US protectionism has "dealt a blow" to the global free trade system amid a mounting trade war with Washington.
"Risks and challenges have been growing" as "unilateral trade protectionism has been emerging," Xi said in a keynote speech at the opening ceremony of the first China International Import Expo, adding his country is eager to "voluntarily open its markets to the world." Protectionism will "result in trade stagnation" and "hurt the global economy," Xi said, as China and the United States under President Donald Trump are engaged in tit-for-tat rounds of punitive tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars of each other's imports. As this year marks the 40th anniversary of the country's reform and opening-up policy, the Asian power, by holding the expo for imports, will try to brush aside criticism that Chinese markets are closed given that they are mainly controlled by the government. China sees the expo as one of this year's most important diplomatic events, along with the Boao Forum for Asia, billed as the region's answer to the World Economic Forum in Davos, and the meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, a Chinese-led security bloc. About 3,600 companies from more than 170 nations, regions and international groups are taking part in the country's first national-level expo for imports, the Chinese government said. Among them are some 180 US firms such as Google LLC and Microsoft Corp. Xi gave a 30-minute speech in front of government officials and business leaders from abroad on the eve of US midterm elections on Tuesday, the result of which will determine the outlook for trade negotiations with the US. To bolster imports, Xi promised to further cut tariffs and ease regulations against foreign enterprises in the medical and education fields, expressing a willingness to promote free trade talks and deepen cooperation in state-of-the-art technology with other countries. As China has been lambasted for stealing technology rather than developing it independently, Xi also committed to implementing measures to protect intellectual property rights. Chinese local governments have sent a large number of buyers to the expo. The Chinese leadership has urged them to actively make contracts, as Washington has put pressure on Beijing to curb China's trade imbalance by increasing imports, sources close to the matter said. In Shanghai, many firms have been trying to increase sales in the Chinese market with a population of 1.4 billion. The expo will end on Saturday. Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc and other foreign political leaders attended the opening ceremony.
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