China central bank adviser Liu Shijin joins chorus urging government to embrace pro-market reforms
- Caixin conference told that opening up the economy further will help ‘win favourable international conditions’
- Liu Shijin is latest in string of economists and government advisers calling for reforms that could help ease trade war tensions
China should adopt a market-based growth strategy and respond to international criticism by further opening up its economy, an adviser to the central bank said on Tuesday.
Liu Shijin’s comments that China could only “win favourable international conditions” by “standing on a higher platform” add to a growing chorus from economists and government advisers calling for Beijing to embrace reforms.
The volume of such pro-market comments in recent weeks suggests a growing debate in policymaking circles about what the government should do to end the trade war.
Liu, deputy head of the China Development Research Foundation, a government think tank, told the annual Caixin conference in Beijing, that China has been a major beneficiary of globalisation over the past 40 years – benefitting from strong foreign investment inflows, strong demand for its exports and joining the World Trade Organisation in 2001.
But he also acknowledged that there had been a change in international attitudes towards China’s development model, urging the government to respond by deepening domestic restructuring and take the moral high ground on international governance standards.