With strong rhetoric against protectionism and a high-profile overseas shopping spree orchestrated by the central government, Beijing has cast China as the champion of free trade in a world spooked by the United States' 'buy American' decree and the 'British jobs for British workers' outcry in recent weeks.
For a country whose exports made up one-third of its annual gross domestic product growth in the past 10 years, there is a tendency to raise a howl of protest over the slightest sign of protectionism abroad.
But Beijing's promise to rule out beggar-thy-neighbour policies in its own domestic campaign to combat the downturn risks is being compromised by local authorities obsessed with their own agenda.
Liu Tienan, the deputy chief of the National Development and Reform Commission, the mainland's top economic planner, reiterated last Friday that in all the stimulus measures Beijing has rolled out, not one buy-local clause had been included.
'Though some of our [export-reliant] domestic industries have been affected by protectionism abroad, we would not make any similar manoeuvres in our own economic stimulus plans [in retaliation] ... neither in trade nor in employment,' he said.
Mr Liu is one of a number of high-ranking officials over the past month to allay any suggestion of 'buy local' provisions in China's massive stimulus efforts, which include 4trillion yuan (HK$4.54 trillion) spending on public infrastructure projects and pump-priming in 10 pillar industries.
