Xi Jinping says ‘China can come out of trade war in better shape than US’
British ambassador relays comments made by Chinese president earlier this year in which he expressed confidence in country’s resilience
President Xi Jinping has told the British ambassador to China that the Communist Party has “the levers and the country had the resilience” to come out of a trade war in better shape than the United States.
The remarks, made at a dinner, were revealed by Barbara Woodward, Britain’s ambassador to China, and come as Beijing and Washington have held a series of talks aimed at preventing a trade war.
The disputes include US complaints about alleged theft of American intellectual property and China’s massive trade surplus with America, which the Trump administration says has been created by unfair trading practices.
“I was at this small dinner with Xi Jinping earlier this year and he was in studied and quite thoughtful mode about the potential trade war,” Woodward said during a speech at the University of Oxford on Tuesday.
“He said everyone would lose out, but he felt that the party had the levers and the country had the resilience to come out the other side, in better shape than the US,” Woodward said.
She added that while Xi was “naturally” seeking to influence as well as inform in his comments, her sense was that “he believed what he was saying”.
Xi’s speech in April about achieving technological independence from the US, Woodward said, was “cut from similar cloth”.