China praises Narendra Modi’s Davos speech opposing protectionism

Beijing: China on Wednesday welcomed Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s speech at World Economic Forum’s summit in Davos where he described protectionism as being “as dangerous as terrorism”. Beijing also evinced interest in enhancing cooperation with India to strengthen the globalization process.

Modi, the first Indian prime minister to address the WEF annual summit in Davos in two decades, had on Tuesday talked about grave concerns facing the world, including terrorism and climate change. “Many countries are becoming inward focused and globalization is shrinking and such tendencies can’t be considered lesser risk than terrorism or climate change,” he had said.

“I noticed that Prime Minister Modi made some remarks on protectionism and his remarks showed that globalization is the trend of the times and serves the interests of all the countries including developing countries and the fight against protectionism and promoting globalization,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said in Beijing. China would like to work with India and other countries to strengthen the globalization process for the benefit of all countries, she added.

Chunying’s comments came after Chinese official media gave a big play to Modi’s speech at the opening plenary of WEF Davos 2018. Some of the dailies, like Global Times, carried the photo of his address on their front pages.

One of the biggest beneficiaries of globalisation, China has emerged as emerged as the world’s factory in the last three decades, posting double-digit GDP growth rates for years while thriving on massive exports to all parts of the world.

China is also firmly opposed to the “America First” policy of US President Donald Trump—the main theme of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s Davos speech last year.

“China and India share a lot of common interests. China would like to enhance coordination and cooperation with all countries including India to steer the economic globalisation towards benefiting world economic growth and well being of all countries,” Chunying said.

When asked whether Modi’s speech “echoed” last year’s speech by Xi Jinping at the same forum, Chunying said Xi Jinping called for moving globalization to a more open, inclusive, universal, balanced and win-win direction. Asked whether the common position of India and China in opposing protectionism could help improve bilateral ties, Chunying said: “Our position is clear. India is a big neighbour of China. As the two largest developing countries and as two close neighbours, of course we hope that we can maintain steady development of bilateral relations. It serves the interests of our two sides”.

“We look forward to working with India to enhance our communication and our mutual trust, properly handle our differences and ensure sound and steady development of our bilateral ties. I believe this is the aspiration of the people of our countries,” she said. PTI